


Something Wicked This Way Comes

by dear_monday



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU: hunters, Crossover, M/M, Voodoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 60,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All across the country, strange things are starting to happen - although "strange" is relative for Gerard Way, whose day job is hunting monsters alongside his changeling brother, Mikey. But now something is coming, something too big for even the Ways to handle. Hunters and monsters alike are running scared, so Gerard and Mikey pack up their secrets and their nightmares (and their extensive collection of firearms) and set out in pursuit of information. Their quest for answers will take them and their old Trans Am all the way from the small towns of New York State to the swamps of Louisiana, crossing paths with the burnt-out ruins of the legendary crew Leathermouth and America's last prophet. It's a dirty, dangerous job, but someone has to do it. And before long, the Ways find themselves thrown together with vengeful rival hunters, highly-strung psychics, voodoo queens, chaos magicians and homicidal barmaids - as they prepare to face an ancient evil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**

> It's only just been finished, but this is a story that's been in the works for more than two years. Many thanks to the usual suspects, particularly the ever-lovely [verbyna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna) for brainstorming with me in the very beginning and helping me realise this sprawling, chaotic 'verse in all its absurd glory. Without you, this story wouldn't exist. Likewise to [deanghostchester](http://deanghostchester.tumblr.com/), [lyricsandlesbians](lyricsandlesbians) and [fayfurie](fayfurie.tumblr.com) for cheerleading and encouraging me to get this thing done at last, and to [dapatty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty) and [akamine_chan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan) for creating such fabulous extras - check them out, they're amazing. Lastly, to the BBB mods, for doing such a stellar job of organising everything, because I don't know how they do it. Writing Something Wicked has been daunting and difficult and it's challenged me to do things I've never done before, and I've enjoyed every minute. I hope you will, too.
> 
>  **Extras:**  
> [Maman Brigitte's](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2233290) by [akamine_chan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan) (I seriously recommend that you listen to this while you read, guaranteed to enhance your experience by at least 672%)  
> [Several gorgeous art pieces](http://dapatty.dreamwidth.org/32307.html) by [dapatty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty)
> 
>  
> 
> **Additional warnings for minor character death, violence, alcohol abuse, some potentially disturbing/scary scenes.**

"Aw, fuck, Jesus fucking-- c'mon, use your tongue... mmm, shit, that's it," groans the guy in front of Gerard, his head falling back against the stall door and his fingers tightening in Gerard's hair. Gerard makes a filthy, needy noise around the guy's cock, tonguing at the slit again. Some distant, sober part of him knows that he's making too much noise, even for the restroom of a shitty dive like this one, but he drank his way past the point of caring several hours ago. He can't even feel the cold, hard tiles under his knees, and every time the nameless stranger pulls his hair the blurred flare of pain goes straight to his dick.

 

He drops one hand down to palm himself through his jeans, whining and bucking against it as the guy fucks his mouth, his grunts and moans distantly filtering down to Gerard. Gerard's lips are spit-slick, wet and sloppy and _good_.

 

"Fuck," pants the stranger eventually. "Stop, c'mon, I wanna..."

 

Gerard pulls off, a thread of spit stretching between his lip and the head of the guy's flushed, hard cock.  He licks his lips, enjoying the way they feel - used and swollen, tingling. He's too drunk and too turned on to do anything but submit when the stranger pulls him to his feet and spins him around, pushing down between Gerard's shoulder blades with one hand and fumbling his jeans open with the other. Gerard doesn't fight, just bends down and spreads his legs willingly with anticipation thrumming in his bones, and the guy groans.

 

"Shit, if only. No, come on, like this." He nudges Gerard's legs a little closer together again, tugging his jeans down around his thighs.  Gerard's mind feels slow and sluggish, running at half-speed while the world screams on, and it isn't until he feels the guy's dick pushing between his thighs that he gets it. The slide is good, slick and easy with Gerard's spit, and the stranger behind him is spilling filth into his ear about how good he feels. Gerard's world has narrowed down to the guy's hands gripping his hips, the guy's cock hot and hard between his thighs, his own hands braced against the greasy tiled wall, his own hard-on throbbing and heavy against his belly.

 

He feels the guy reaching over his shoulder, and the next thing he knows, there are two fingers pushing into his open mouth. Gerard sucks on them obediently, licking at the rough pads of the guy's fingers and tasting sweat and something familiar that he's in no state to place right now.

 

"That's it, just like that," pants the voice in his ear. The fingers are abruptly and clumsily pulled back out of Gerard's mouth, leaving a smear of wetness on his cheek, and he whines at the loss. But then a hot, wet hand is wrapping around his cock, jacking him hard and fast, and all he can do is let out a choked-off cry and buck forward into the touch. He's nowhere near ready for this to be over yet, but he can feel his orgasm coiling in his belly and he's way, way too far gone to have so much as a shred of self-control left. He makes a pathetic, helpless noise, pinned between the guy's hand and his cock. It's what he needs, and over the years he's got good at spotting the guys who are willing to give it to him.

 

"'M gonna," he gasps, his hips stuttering forwards and his balls drawing up, and then he's coming hard all over the guy's hand. The stranger keeps jacking Gerard as his own rhythm falters, and the stall is full of the unmistakable skin-on-skin sound of people fucking.

 

Gerard can only wait, whimpering and over-sensitized, until the guy thrusts forwards one more time with a satisfied groan, spilling warm and sticky between Gerard's thighs. The guy slows until he slumps against Gerard's back, spent and panting, and they stay like that for a moment, stuck together with sweat, both riding their own high.

 

Eventually, the guy pulls away, and Gerard hears the drag of a zipper. Gerard straightens up too, his knees weak and his head spinning. He feels drained, blessedly purged of the twitchy, restless energy that's been hounding him all night. He feels the guy behind him pressing a balled-up fistful of tissue into his hand and giving his ass a playful slap, then he's gone and Gerard is alone in the stall.

 

Gerard cleans himself up as best he can, blotting at the sticky mess between his legs and wiping his hands before he staggers back out into the bar. He scans the people milling about, everything swimming and doubling before his eyes. Fuck. He's too drunk for this.

 

He spots a skinny, lanky figure in an oversized leather jacket, nursing a beer, and stumbles over. "Mikey!" he slurs, slinging his arm around the figure. "Oh. Shit, sorry, not you. Have you seen--? Oh, there he is! Mikey! Hey, Mikey! I love you," Gerard tells the real Mikey earnestly, steadying himself against the wall. "An' I'm glad… 'M glad you're safe."

 

"You're drunk," says the real Mikey, looking faintly embarrassed. "And you fucking reek of sex, oh my _god_. C'mon, let's get you back to the motel."

 

Gerard drapes himself over Mikey and lets himself be dragged out into the parking lot. The clean, chilly air stings his cheeks and rakes its fingers through his hair, and his last thought before he blacks out is that Mikey's with him, Mikey's _safe_.

 

 

*

 

 

The sun is high in the sky and the I-81 is unspooling ahead of them when Gerard finally crashes back into the real world. He jolts, his body twitching spasmodically, his hands flying up as a lets out a high, thin, panicked noise, and Mikey takes one hand off the wheel to grab his shoulder.

 

"Just a dream, Gee," he says. "C'mon, you're good. I'm here."

 

Gerard nods jerkily, his eyes still wide and scared, still breathing hard. One of his hands flutters around his neck, checking for phantom bite marks. He closes his eyes, willing his head to clear. Mikey's thin fingers digging into his shoulder are like an anchor, hoisting him back out of the confused, bloody dreams.

 

"Vampires again?" asks Mikey, more quietly, withdrawing his hand from Gerard's shoulder.

 

Gerard nods wearily. "Always," he says. "Always the fucking vampires."

 

Mikey doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. Gerard knows he understands. "You wanna stop for breakfast?" he says instead, and Gerard groans.

 

"I'd only puke it up again. Let's just... get to Blairstown."

 

Mikey throws him a crooked smile and pulls out into the fast lane.

 

 

*

 

 

They stop at a diner on the outskirts of Binghamton, and Mikey goes inside in search of coffee while Gerard heads over to the drugstore across the street for some Advil. He pays the bored boy standing behind the checkout in the otherwise empty store, then opens the bottle and knocks a couple back as he stumbles back outside into the sun. He groans, raising one hand to shield his eyes. The sunlight feels like splinters being hammered into his brain and his mouth tastes like a rat crawled in there and died. He needs coffee, and _soon_ , or heads are going to roll. No _way_ is he doing battle with this nuclear-powered motherfucker of a hangover without coffee.

 

He makes his way back across the street and through the diner's parking lot to the glass doors. The AC hits him hard, like cold water on his warm, sticky skin, like a blessing. Mikey is sitting at a greasy Formica table, with two enormous coffee cups and a tower of pancakes in front of him.

 

"This one's yours," Mikey says, pushing one of the cups towards Gerard.

 

"Are you sure?" Gerard asks, sliding into the seat opposite Mikey, picking up the cup and sniffing at it suspiciously. Mikey puts a revolting amount of sugar in his coffee, and Gerard would rather not inflict projectile vomiting on the diner's staff this early in the day.

 

"Yes, Jesus Christ." Mikey rolls his eyes. "You're welcome, asshole."

 

Gerard grunts, and takes a long sip of his coffee. Mikey is chewing up what looks like an entire pancake and half a bottle of maple syrup. It isn't a pretty sight.

 

"You take some Advil?" Mikey says thickly, through a mouthful of half-chewed food, and Gerard groans again and covers his eyes.

 

"Oh, god, I so did not need to see that," he says. "Fuck you, what happened to not talking with your mouth full?Mom would be _ashamed_. But yeah, I got some."

 

"Good, good," says Mikey vaguely, somehow cramming yet another forkful into his mouth, seemingly oblivious to Gerard's thoughts on his table manners.

 

"You're disgusting," Gerard mumbles, drinking some more of his coffee. The sooner he gets some caffeine in him, the better. "And I hate you. I'm gonna puke."

 

Mikey swallows. "Well, better do it in here and not in the car," he says, infuriatingly serenely. "Pancakes?" He deliberately wafts the smell of warm syrup towards Gerard, who gags.

 

"No thank you," he says, with all the dignity he can muster. "Eat your goddamn food, we've got places to be."

 

 

*

 

 

By the time the sun is sinking back towards the horizon again and the shadows are long and strange, Gerard has more or less recovered.  He bitches at Mikey about his driving, but there's no sting in it. It's worn-in and comfortable, familiar. This - the two of them, the purr and growl of the engine, the asphalt under the wheels - this is home. Danzig is howling over the stereo, Gerard singing along under his breath to London Dungeon and Teenagers From Mars.

 

Mikey shifts up a gear and the car protests, the gearbox grinding as it labors to keep up. Gerard cringes, then strokes the dashboard tenderly. "I'm sorry, baby," he croons. "I'll drive tomorrow, I promise. _I_ know how to treat you right."

 

"Not my fault your fuckin' rustbucket is a fucking _stick shift_ ," retorts Mikey.

 

"Don't listen to him, baby," Gerard coos, then shoots Mikey a dirty look. "You don't talk to a lady like that, fucker. She's a _pedigree_."

 

"Pedigree piece of shit," Mikey mutters, rolling his eyes. "So, this hunt. What do we know?"

 

Mikey is the researcher, really, the one who slips through records and archives like a fish through water. But after that disastrous haunting in Pennsylvania, he likes to make sure they're both on the same page.

 

"Eight disappearances in the last three months, all locals who knew the area, all in the same woods," Gerard reels off, pushing his hair back off his face. "All vanished without a trace, none of them told anyone they were going out into the woods. It's been happening for centuries, but the disappearances haven't been frequent enough to form a pattern anyone noticed before now. But it's picking up the pace, whatever it is, so we're going to take a look."

 

As a person, Gerard knows he can be unreliable, unreasonable, unthinking, unstable. But as a hunter, he's a force of nature.

 

 

*

 

 

They finally roll into Blairstown just as the gathering darkness begins to fall over the town like rain.

 

"Okay," Gerard says, looking around at the neon signs blossoming in the dusk. "How about we find a motel, ditch our stuff--"

 

"Shower," Mikey says pointedly, wrinkling his nose. "You smell like death. Gross, beery... jizz-stained death."

 

Gerard rolls his eyes. Mikey still reeks of eau de greasy diner, and yet _he_ isn't bitching about it. "-- _Freshen up_ ," he says, "Then head out, find a bar, see what we can pick up. Sound good?"

 

Mikey shrugs. "I guess so, yeah. We didn't get called in here, it's just stuff I put together from the news and a bit of internet digging. So yeah, it's not like we've got anything better to do."

 

"Fine." Gerard's stomach growls as he pulls into the forecourt of a motel, the _VACANCIES_ sign burning overhead in bright, poisonous pink. "And I need a goddamn burger."

 

An hour and a half later finds them sitting in a half-empty bar, Gerard toying unenthusiastically with a diet coke. He doesn't drink while they're working, but nights like this make him want to. Mikey is running his fingertip idly around the top of his beer bottle. Unlike Gerard, Mikey has the self-control to stop himself after one beer, something Gerard envies bitterly.

 

He drags himself forcibly back to the present moment and the task at hand. _Pull yourself together_ , he tells himself sternly. They've got a job to do. He downs a large mouthful of coke. It's flat, but at least it's cold, and it clears his head a little. Next to him, Mikey is chatting to the bartender, an older guy with long, iron-grey hair.

 

"Yeah, me 'n my brother here," Mikey says, tipping his head in Gerard's direction, "We're driving down to Florida, our parents live out there. Kind of a road trip."

 

"Oh yeah?" says the bartender. His nametag reads _TOM_. "Florida's real nice, this time of year. You know, before it gets too hot."

 

"Mm." Mikey nods in agreement, sipping his beer while Tom pours out a double whiskey on the rocks for the woman sitting a few seats along from them. Gerard manages a weak smile, although it probably looks more like a grimace. He fucking hates Florida and Mama and Papa Way are both dead and gone, salted and burned as per their wishes. It's going to be a long night.

 

Mikey, evidently picking up on his displeasure, nudges him gently. "Hey," he murmurs, as Tom pours out another drink for the dark-haired girl halfway down the bar. "I know. We don't have to stay long, we'll head back soon."

 

Gerard shoots him a grateful look, and drinks some more coke. His hangover has abated, but in its wake he feels drained and sluggish. "Thanks," he says sincerely, under his breath. "Anyway, this place is dead, just look at it. We're not gonna find out anything here."

 

Mikey chuckles, glancing back over his shoulder at the bar's meagre clientele. "Maybe not," he admits. "But it was worth a shot."

 

Several seats along, the young woman is talking to Tom in a low, slightly rough voice that's... somehow familiar. Casually, he glances in her direction, but at that exact moment a large man in a cheap suit with pronounced sweat circles under the arms shoulders his way in between them, right into Gerard's line of sight, and blocks her from view.

 

"This seems like a nice place, though," Mikey says, returning his attention to Tom. "You know, friendly. Safe. Nice place to settle down."

 

"Until recently I'd've agreed with you," Tom says sadly. Mikey leans towards him, the picture of innocent curiosity, but Gerard has tuned out again. He's got this guy pegged; there's nothing they'll be able to extract from him that they don't already know. He glances along the bar again, and stops. No wonder the girl's voice sounded so familiar.

 

"Lindsey?" he says, and she shoots him a crooked grin.

 

"I was wondering how long that was gonna take you," she says. She slides gracefully from her barstool, hopping up onto the one next to Gerard instead. She leans in, kissing him on the cheek. "Call yourself a hunter, Jesus Christ. Hey, doll. How are you?"

 

Gerard snorts, nodding at the glass of flat soda in front of him, the ice cubes in it bobbing mournfully as they dissolve. "Honestly? Fuckin' awful. What brings you here?"

 

"Same as you, I'd imagine. Steve and Kitty are hanging out in other bars, Jimmy's watching the woods."

 

"Oh. Wow, so you've been in town a while already?"

 

"A few days, yeah." She glances at Tom, still deep in conversation with Mikey - who has, of course, been listening intently to Gerard and Lindsey's exchange, but is manfully continuing to feign interest in Tom's third and fourth hand accounts of the recent disappearances.

 

"And what's your verdict?" Gerard asks.

 

She snorts, and slams back the rest of her drink. The ice cubes rattle as she thumps the glass back down on the bar. "This place is a shithole."

 

Gerard cracks a smile for the first time that evening. He doesn't see Lindsey and the rest of her crew often, maybe three or four times a year when their paths cross on hunts, but they're good people. "You're telling me. How are the others, everyone doing okay?"

 

It's always a dangerous question to ask another hunter. Hunting, after all, is a dangerous game. Lindsey knows that as well as any of them - she's running with a ghost on her heels, that of the dead girl she replaced in the crew she runs with. But this time, she smiles. "Yeah, everyone's fine. Couple of dislocated shoulders, a few broken fingers, some scrapes and scratches. Nothing Steve can't fix up." She shrugs. "The usual. What about you and Mikey?"

 

"'Bout the same," he says. "Just finished up with a case in Ithaca, a Leshy. Well, a few of them. In the same forest. We weren't expecting that, they're supposed to be solitary. It got a little... messy, but we managed."

 

"You can show me your scars some other time," Lindsey says drily. "So how did you hear about this one?"

 

"Mikey put it together," Gerard says simply. He drinks some more of his coke, and grimaces. It's lukewarm now, and no easier to drink for that. He pushes it away. "He's good with that kind of thing," he says.  He glances sideways at Mikey, who's still having his ear talked off by Tom. "You know, newspapers. Good at spotting patterns."

 

"Huh. Tell him nice work," says Lindsey. "We got a tip off, otherwise we'd never have known." She stretches. "So you two can take a week off," she says. She lowers her voice slightly, not that anyone is listening. "We've got this one. We're pretty sure it's a Pontianak."

 

"You sure?" Gerard asks, more out of some residual trace of good manners or spirit of camaraderie than any desire at all to stay in Blairstown. "Me and Mikey met a Pontianak in Baltimore a few years back. We could help."

 

"Sweet," she says, patting his cheek affectionately. "Thanks, but I think we'll cope."

 

"Hey, Linds," Mikey says, apparently having managed to extricate himself from an in-depth discussion with Tom about Blairstown's many attractions. He claps her on the shoulder, and she shakes his hand. "Looking good."

 

"Mhm," she says serenely, examining her reflection in her empty glass. "Anyway, I was just telling your brother we've got this one covered. You two are free to go."

 

"Really? You sure you don't need any help?" Mikey says, but Lindsey waves him away.

 

"Yeah, yeah. We just did all that," she says. "Nice of you to offer, but--" she breaks off suddenly, her cell phone shrilling as she whips it out of her pocket. "Steve," she says, her voice turning sharp and businesslike. "What have you got for me? I--okay. Yes. Be right there, give me ten minutes."

 

She hangs up and stuffs the phone back into her jacket pocket, already hopping down from the bar stool. "Sorry to run out on you, boys," she says distractedly, her mind obviously fixed on the hunt. "See you 'round."

 

And then she's gone, slipping through the door and vanishing into the night with feline grace and speed, her dark hair streaming behind her in the wind.

 

"Wow," says Tom, sidling over and glancing out through the window at Lindsey's retreating back. "You think it was something you said?"

 

"Yeah, maybe," Mikey says distractedly, already thumbing through his wallet and slapping a ten dollar bill down on the bar. "Good to meet you, Tom." He tucks his wallet back into his pocket and starts towards the door, obviously very aware that Gerard is itching to get gone.

 

"So now what?" says Mikey, as they make their way back through the quiet streets to the motel. It isn't that late, but for all the people out and about, it might as well be a ghost town. Maybe it's the recent disappearances weighing on people's minds, or maybe this is just another shitty two-bit town where no one goes out anyway.

 

"Dunno," Gerard says, lighting a cigarette and offering the pack to Mikey, who takes one. He exhales smoke and draws in a lungful of warm, sweet night air. His leather jacket feels heavy on his shoulders, his t-shirt clinging go his clammy skin like a lover. Summer is almost upon them, the last days of spring burning up like fireworks. The sky overhead is clear and velvety, blue-black, and down on the ground the streetlights and neon signs cast strange, jagged pieces of colorful light and shadow on the sidewalk. "Any bright ideas?"

 

"We should go and see Ray," says Mikey, after a long moment's consideration. "We've been promising him we'd come for weeks. And it's not like we've got any other jobs lined up."

 

"That's true," Gerard concedes. "So, what? Stay here tonight, then head on down to Belleville tomorrow morning?"

 

"Might as well, we already paid for the motel."

 

Gerard grunts. He can't argue with that, even though he'd rather just get the hell out of here. "Okay," he says, eventually. "Come on."

 

They walk the rest of the way back to the motel in silence, the quiet night punctuated only by their footsteps, the sighing of passing cars and the occasional bright flare of music. They cross the motel forecourt, Mikey digging in his pocket for the key on its ugly plastic keychain. As the pass the car, still sitting in the parking lot where they left it, Gerard shoots a furtive, longing look in its direction. What he wouldn't give to be getting back in that car and leaving this town coughing and spluttering in the dust behind them. The lights seem to slide invitingly off the Trans Am's sleek, glossy body, the smooth black paint scattered and spangled with reflected light.

 

Mikey hops lightly up the stairs and onto the low veranda, padding along until he reaches a door with the number 27 painted carelessly on the pockmarked wood. The bare boards creak under Mikey's boots as he pushes the key into the lock and turns it, and the doorframe is mottled with patches of peeling paint.

 

"What a dump," Gerard mutters, although they've stayed in far, far worse.

 

"At least it's just for tonight," Mikey says reasonably, already shrugging off his jacket and dropping it carelessly on one of the twin beds. "You want the bathroom first?"

 

"Mm? Oh. Nah, you go."

 

Mikey disappears into the little bathroom, and Gerard sits down heavily on the other bed. He kicks off his boots and wriggles out of his jeans, jacket and shirt, leaving them in a heap on the floor. Ray isn't going to care about a few creases in a stupid shirt and Gerard is suddenly so tired, his bones heavy and his eyelids sagging. He pulls back the stiff, scratchy covers and gets in between them, letting out a slow sigh. After a few more minutes, Mikey ambles back out of the bathroom, yawning and running his hands through his hair, smelling of cheap soap and peppermint toothpaste.

 

"Night," he says, pulling back the covers and climbing into bed.

 

"G'night," Gerard says sleepily, reaching for the light switch. Darkness blossoms and fills the room, leaving nothing but the shards of neon light slipping in through the gaps in the cheap blinds.

 

"Mikes," he says, "Why d'you always tell the Florida story?" Somehow, even though it's only Mikey - _Mikey_ , who he knows off by heart, knows better than he knows himself - the words come easier in the dark.

 

Silence. Gerard waits, but no answer comes. Gerard would wonder if Mikey had already fallen asleep, but it hardly seems likely. Mikey's insomnia never really leaves him.

 

"Mikey?" Gerard says, quietly.

 

"I heard you," says Mikey's voice, soft and raw and riddled with hairline cracks that only Gerard can hear. "I... don't know. I guess I just... like the thought that they're still out there, you know, some nice old retired couple with a porch swing and a dog."

 

Gerard opens his mouth, then closes it again. Mikey doesn't surprise him often, but this is one of those rare moments. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I get it. It's better than..." he trails off. He knows Mikey's thinking the same thing he is: it's better than remembering them the way they were, their mother with her throat ripped out and the light of vengeance dying in her eyes, their father long since gone the same way.

 

"Yeah," Mikey murmurs, his voice heavy with grief for parents whose blood doesn't even run in his veins. "Night, Gee."

 

Gerard spends most of the night tossing and turning, chasing sleep. No matter which way he lies, there's always a spring poking into him. Across the room, Mikey's breathing is slow and even, and when Gerard finally lurches gratefully into the arms of a fitful, uneasy sleep, it's full of strange, crowded dreams. He wonders, in the liquid moments between sleeping and waking, whether Mikey is dreaming too.

 

It's a relief when Gerard finally opens his eyes and sees sunlight streaming through the grimy window. Morning. Thank Christ. Mikey is already awake, sitting on the end of his bed and lacing up his boots.

 

"What time is it?" Gerard mumbles.

 

Mikey looks over at him, frowning. "Say that again?"

 

"What time is it?" Gerard repeats, this time pulling the covers down properly and sticking his head out.

 

"About half past seven, I think," Mikey says, squinting out of the window. "Come on, sleeping beauty. Let's hit the road."

 

Gerard heaves himself out of bed (it isn't a particularly comfortable bed, but he never did like mornings) and starts stumbling around the room, looking for the clothes he left scattered across the floor the night before. Mikey sits on the other bed, texting furiously, presumably to let Ray know that they're coming. Gerard finally locates his other sock under the bed and sits back down to pull it on, yawning.

 

"Right," he says, once he's got his boots on and retrieved his jacket from the coat hook by the door. "Let's get out of here."

It's a perfect day for driving. The sky is a hard, bright enamel blue and the morning sun is drenching everything in light. Gerard takes the wheel, categorically not willing to endure another day of Mikey's driving, and before long, Blairstown is receding in their rear view mirror, nothing but the open road ahead of them.

 

 

*

 

 

When they finally pull up outside Ray's place on the outskirts of Belleville, he's waiting for them on the front porch. He raises his one remaining hand in greeting as they clamber out of the car.

 

"Good to see you," he calls, getting up from the rocking chair and striding forward to pull them both into a one-armed bear hug. He grins, the spider's web of scars on the left side of his face twitching. "It's been... what, three months?"

 

"Something like that," Mikey agrees, hugging him back. "Hey, Ray. Good to see you too. How's it going?"

 

"Can't complain," Ray says with a gallows laugh, adjusting the patch that sits over his sightless left eye. "Same old, same old. Come on in." He ushers them inside, and Gerard feels as if he's been submerged in the familiar scent of leather and gunmetal and Ray's famous lasagna. It smells like... well, it smells like home. After all, this is the closest he and Mikey ever get to coming home these days. He feels a slight pang of guilt. They really should visit more often, he knows how frustrated Ray gets now he can't hunt anymore. He does his best to put a brave face on it, but Gerard knows the accident - a ghoul hunt that turned nasty, taking Ray's left hand and eye and leaving him with more than one kind of scars - hit him hard.

 

Mikey is already shrugging off his jacket and slinging it carelessly over the pair of mounted stag's antlers that serve as coat hooks. Gerard does the same, smiling slightly to himself. He'd never admit it, but the familiarity is comforting. He follows Mikey into the kitchen, where Ray is opening a beer bottle with his teeth.

 

"Thanks," says Gerard appreciatively, taking a seat at the scrubbed wooden table as Ray slides the bottle over to him and opens another one for Mikey.

 

"No worries. So, you been busy?" Ray asks, leaning back in his chair and stretching lazily. These last few years have aged him, Gerard thinks, watching the last of the afternoon sun picking out the new strands of silver in Ray's thick, curly hair.

 

"Yeah," says Mikey, taking a long slurp of his beer. "It's fucking weird, all these creepy crawlies at this time of year."

 

Ray raises an eyebrow. "Oh?"

 

"Lots of weird shit going on," Gerard elaborates. "Leshies scrapping over turf, that kind of thing."

 

"In packs?" Ray says sharply. "But they're territorial, they're normally one to a forest."

 

"Tell me about it," says Gerard, darkly. That particular incident rattled him more than he cares to admit. There are patterns, rules every hunter has to understand in order to survive. And if those known quantities start to splinter, it's suddenly a much, much more dangerous game. Across the table, Mikey nods in agreement.

 

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," says Ray, scratching absent-mindedly at his scarred, weathered face. "You two aren't the only ones who think there's something weird going on."

 

Gerard was really, really hoping Ray wouldn't say that. "I wish you hadn't said that."

 

"Yeah," says Mikey gloomily. "Because you're probably right."

 

Ray chuckles, shrugging it off. "I don't know," he says. "It might be nothing. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."

 

Gerard nods thoughtfully, and drinks some more of his beer. Ray knows a lot of people. He hears a lot of stuff. If he thinks it's worth bringing up, it probably isn't nothing.

 

"Oh," Ray says, his easy smile fading. "I was gonna tell you. I've got some bad news."

 

Gerard's stomach turns. "Go on," he says, bracing himself. The sooner he hears it, the less time he has to manufacture all kinds of nightmare scenarios. Mikey's face is blank, a perfectly expressionless mask.

 

Ray looks him squarely in the eye. "It's Bert," he says gently. "He was killed last week. It was a vamp nest. The others all made it out." _Something went wrong. These things happen._ The words are unspoken, but they hang heavy in the air. "I'm sorry. I know you two were... close."

 

There's a dull roaring in Gerard's ears. _Bert._ Angry, electric, bulletproof Bert. They didn't exactly part friends - how could they have done, after everything? - but Gerard realizes as he sits there in the ringing silence that always follows a bombshell that he hadn't thought it was over, not really. There was always some stubborn, hopeful part of him that believed that one day they'd patch things up some day, talk it over, at least try to salvage their friendship from all the mess. But now they never will, and the finality hits him like a punch in the gut.

 

"Shit," he says, struggling to find the words. He stares down at the table top, the grains and whorls of the wood. "I always... _shit_."

 

Across the table, Mikey's face is still carefully expressionless, and suddenly, Gerard understands.

 

"You knew," he says, quietly. "You knew, didn't you?"

 

Mikey lowers his head, just once, in acknowledgement. "Jepha called me. The day after it happened."

 

"Wait, Jepha? Jepha _Howard?_ " It doesn't matter, of course, but it's easier to talk about the stupid bullshit than to think about Bert lying still and stiff on a funeral pyre.

 

"Yeah." Mikey runs his finger around the lip of his bottle. His eyes are earnest, beseeching, and Gerard wants to be angry but there's a stark nothingness when he reaches for the emotion, like an empty bottle or a missing stair. "We... talk. Sometimes."

 

Gerard is quiet. There's this look on Mikey's face, like there's more to come. When Mikey says nothing, Gerard lets out an impatient huff of breath. "Go on," he says, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees kaleidoscope patterns. If there's worse, he wants to hear it. He can only hurt so much at once.

 

For the first time, Mikey's gaze drops, and Gerard blinks. He knows that look, that's guilt on Mikey's face.

 

"Vampires," says Mikey softly. "Whenever I heard about a vamp nest, I'd... pass it on to Jepha."

 

Gerard slams his hand down on the table. He _is_ angry now, and it's almost a relief. "What the _fuck_ , Mikey? Since when? You think I can't--"

 

"No." Mikey's voice is quiet, but he looks back up at Gerard and his eyes are hard. "I don't think you can. Gee, I-- we're all we've got, you know?" His voice cracks, and Gerard's anger drains away like water through cupped hands. He's dimly aware of Ray pushing his chair back and walking out of the kitchen as Mikey swallows and draws a deep, shuddering breath. "And I'm not... I'm not letting you go hunting goddamn _vampires_ because it'd kill you." _And me._ The silence hangs, suspended, as fragile as spun glass.

 

"Sorry," Gerard mutters, after what feels like forever. His eyes are stinging and he bites his tongue, hard. This soul-baring stuff doesn't come naturally to either of them, especially Mikey.

 

"And, uh." Mikey clears his throat. His hand is clenched so tightly around the neck of his bottle that the white of his knucklebones shines through the skin. "Since this is honesty hour, or whatever the fuck--"

 

"You sent them in there," Gerard supplies dully. He feels empty, as if he's been hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. "I guessed. Don't worry, it wasn't... your fault."

 

Mikey nods, just once, and Gerard knows that for him, that's the end of it. He envies the way Mikey thinks, the tidy black-and-whiteness of it. As long as Gerard doesn't blame him, that's all he needs. Whether it's a changeling thing or just a Mikey thing, Gerard doesn't know.

 

"Hey." Mikey reaches across the table and squeezes Gerard's hand. It's something Gerard used to do him when they were kids and Mikey was having nightmares about the monsters they both knew could actually be scratching at the door. Gerard almost manages a smile.

 

"We good?" Mikey says, searching Gerard's face carefully. He looks worried, biting down on his lip.

 

"We're good," Gerard assures him. "Don't worry about it. You were only trying to help."

 

Mikey nods, almost imperceptibly. "'Kay. I'm gonna go take a shower, I fuckin' reek."

 

Gerard sniffs, then wrinkles his nose. "No argument from me."

 

Mikey grins and pushes his chair back, flipping Gerard off over his shoulder as he heads for the upstairs bathroom. Suddenly finding himself alone with his thoughts, Gerard unconsciously starts to peel the label off his beer bottle, staring at the tiny green buds on the apple tree that stands beyond the kitchen window. He allows himself a moment of remembrance, knowing that this might well be his last best chance to grieve. He thinks about Bert's unhinged, bewitching smile, the greasy tangles in his hair, the way his hands looked when he smoked, the messy, desperate way he kissed, those ugly fucking tatts, the blazing heart under that obnoxious exoskeleton. Bert isn't the first hunter Gerard has known who's died on the job - hell, everyone in the game knows someone; it's a job with a higher mortality rate than most - but none of the others hurt this bad. A short, bitter laugh forces its way up Gerard's throat and out of his mouth. _You bastard_ , he thinks. _You bastard, you went and got yourself killed before I could tell you I was sorry. Looks like you got the last word after all_.

 

"All clear?"

 

Gerard jumps slightly, and looks over to see Ray cautiously poking his head around the door.

 

"Mm? Oh, yeah. Sorry about that," he says, slightly sheepishly. He feels wrung out now, drained.

 

Ray shrugs affably, and walks around the table to take a seat opposite Gerard. Under his arm is a leatherbound book the size of a paving slab, and he lays it down with a heavy thump.

 

"It's all this shit going on," Gerard says, continuing to peel the label off his bottle. It's still almost full, lukewarm and unappetizing now. He drinks some anyway,  just for the sake of something to do with his hands. "It's getting to me."

 

"It's getting to everyone," Ray says absently, heaving the book open. The pages are covered in rows upon rows of dense black glyphs that don't form words in any language Gerard knows, printed on thick, creamy vellum. "Someone should go see the Prophet," adds Ray, looking up at Gerard. Gerard's mouth twitches in the slightest of involuntary grimaces.

 

"Yeah," he says. "I guess he might..." Gerard trails off, not liking the look in Ray's good eye one bit. "Oh no," he says. "Oh, _hell_ no. There is absolutely _no way_."

 

Ray raises one eyebrow, and returns his attention to the delicately yellowed pages of the enormous tome currently taking up almost half of the kitchen table. Gerard pushes his chair back, its legs scraping loudly on the cracked tiles, and crosses his arms defiantly.

 

"I am not asking that... that..." Gerard struggles for a suitable curse word to demonstrate the strength of his feelings. "I'm not asking _him_ for help," he growls eventually, his lip curling.

 

Ray ignores him, and carefully turns another page.

 

"Ray," whines Gerard, leaning forwards and settling his elbows on the table. "Come on, you know I can't do that."

 

"Oh? Why not?" Ray asks in a maddeningly serene voice, still not looking up.

 

"Because," Gerard grits out, "He's a creepy, slippery son of a bitch with an ego the size of Mexico, that's why not."

 

"In other words, because you don't like him." Ray turns back a page and makes a brief note in a nearby pad.

 

"No, because he's an _asshole_ ," mutters Gerard, scowling. He pushes his beer away from him in protest, then changes his mind and picks it up again, glaring at Ray over the lip of the bottle. "I'm not going."

 

Ray exhales slowly, and Gerard can almost hear him slowly counting to ten in his head. Then he looks up, pinning Gerard with an earnest look and tucking a stray curl of hair behind his ear. "Well, someone has to, and it might as well be you. I don't know why you're making it so difficult. He likes you, you know."

 

"No," Gerard corrects him, through gritted teeth, "He likes _Mikey_."

 

"Yeah, but surely--"

 

"Someone say my name?" Mikey ambles back into the sunlit kitchen, tousle-haired, clean-shaven and unusually fresh-smelling, and pours himself languidly into a seat.

 

"Ray is... suggesting that we go to see the Prophet," Gerard says, pronouncing the last word as if it's something nasty he's just thrown up, and trying furiously to telegraph _and I would rather deep fry my face_ to Mikey. His problem isn't with Mikey being liked, his problem is with Mikey being liked by... _him_. Something happens to the hunters that the Prophet takes a shine to. It's as if he has some sort of strange gravity that draws them into his orbit, and once they're there, they never seem to want to leave. Gerard doesn't know how he does it, if it's brainwashing or mind control or drugs in the food and drink he plies his guests with, but if it happened to Mikey, Gerard would never forgive himself. He can't imagine travelling the east coast's highways and hunting down its monsters without Mikey at his side. He doesn't think he could do it. Come to that, he isn't at all sure he'd even know how. Rumor has it that the Prophet has recently acquired another of Mikey's kind, a boy called William who sometimes knows things he shouldn't and still has dim memories of another world. Maybe the Prophet is collecting them, like exotic pets or particularly fine specimens of butterfly. Gerard suppresses a shudder.

 

"Oh, are we going to Nevada?" says Mikey vaguely, stretching like a cat. "That'd be cool, we haven't seen him in a while."

 

"I know," Gerard says, darkly. "It's been real nice."

 

"We should go," says Mikey, yawning again, apparently completely oblivious to Gerard's evil eye.

 

"Mikey..." Gerard says pleadingly.

 

Mikey blinks owlishly at him. "You don't have to come with me," he says. "I don't mind, I'll go by myself if you don't wanna."

 

"Oh, like hell you will," growls Gerard, instantly switching gears. "Fine. _Fine_. Let's go. See if I care."

 

Mikey smirks like it's going out of style.

 

 

*

 

 

So Gerard buys the tickets from Ray's ancient desktop computer, and, the next morning, Ray gives them a ride to the airport.

 

"I can't believe we're doing this," Gerard mutters, staring moodily through the smeared window at the pearly-pale sky and the flat expanse of runway outside. It's almost half past ten and he's only had one coffee. That isn't even half as much caffeine as he needs to deal with this bullshit.

 

"You know a fairy dies every time you say you don't believe, right?" Mikey says, cracking open the trashy romance novel he picked up at the airport's little bookstore.

 

Gerard gives him a Look, but as ever, Mikey seems immune. "Ha ha ha," he says darkly, slumping deeper into his uncomfortable plastic seat. "You're a freaking _riot._ "

 

Time drips by slowly, the planes outside coming and going while canned announcements wash over the desultory occupants of the departure lounge. Gerard buys a cheap sandwich and eats it, more for something to do than because he's actually hungry. The lettuce is soggy and the bread is like cardboard in his mouth, which he finds oddly comforting, redolent of a thousand quick, cheap meals on the road. Mikey alternates between texting furiously and reading his book, although Gerard isn't sure why he's bothering - Mikey has usually worked out exactly how the story is going to end long before he reaches the bottom of the first page. Other passengers shuffle in and out, tired-looking parents and bored kids, grey-faced businessmen and women, one or two nervous young couples, the odd elderly person chaperoned by a grown-up son or daughter. Gerard watches them come and go, his eyes glazed.

 

Eventually, their flight is called and they both get to their feet, shouldering their bags.

 

"Finally," Gerard grumbles.

 

"You're just cranky because you're not armed," Mikey says quietly, glancing at the hard-faced security guard by the gate.

 

Gerard lets out a huff of irritation. "I don't like not having my gun. It makes me nervous."

 

By "gun" he really means the stash of firearms, silencers, telescopic sights, blades, whetstones, ammo, rope, night vision goggles, explosives, lighter fluid, rock salt and god only knows what else in in the trunk of the car, but he doesn't think it would be prudent to talk too loudly about all of that in the middle of an airport. Gerard would have been all for driving from Jersey to Nevada, mainly because it would have postponed the inevitable moment when he would have come face to face with the Prophet. But, annoyingly, Ray made a very valid point about the cost of gasoline, then added that if there was something going on, they'd be better off knowing about it sooner rather than later.

 

Sometimes, Gerard really doesn't like Ray.

 

A bored stewardess with a plastic smile directs them to their seats. They edge their way down the narrow aisle until they find them, where a vicious but totally silent scuffle ensues over who gets the window seat. Mikey wins, catching Gerard in the kidney with a sharp elbow, and Gerard grumpily takes the aisle side. Mikey calmly opens his book again as the captain's voice filters through the PA, and Gerard settles into his seat and tries to relax. This whole trip was a terrible idea. They're flying across the country, completely unarmed, to walk straight into the cobra's nest. The Prophet himself doesn't worry Gerard, as much as Gerard dislikes him. No, Gerard is more concerned about the Prophet's cult - the little entourage of stray hunters and other oddballs and zealots who have found themselves drawn to his light and somehow never left. Not only are they all dangerous enough in their own right, they're fanatics. If the Prophet thinks for a moment that Gerard and Mikey are threatening him, they're both dead men. And if something goes wrong but they do get out, where would they go? They don't have the car, and anyway, Nevada is hardly home turf. They could run to any one of at least five bolt-holes in any east coast city, but out in the desert they'd be sitting ducks.

 

"Stop worrying," Mikey intones.

 

"I'm not," Gerard says immediately, making a point of stretching and leaning back to demonstrate just how totally not worried he is.

 

"You were. You were thinking really loudly, you're giving me a headache."

 

"Your headache is gonna be the least of our problems when we're lying in the cobra's front yard with bullets in our faces," Gerard retorts.

 

"Oh, let it go," snaps Mikey, closing his book and giving Gerard his undivided attention, and, for the first time, sounding irritated. "I know you don't like him. I get it. But he's not actually going to turn around and shoot us on sight, okay? And _we need his help_. Jesus."

 

Looking aggrieved, Mikey returns to the garishly pink book in his lap, and Gerard subsides into chastened silence.

 

 

*

 

 

Heat breaks over them in waves the instant they stumble from the plane five hours later, at Elko Regional Airport. The sun has started to sink back towards the horizon, blinding them as they step into the light, but it'll be at least a couple of hours before the blessed evening chill descends.

 

Mikey had, while they were still up in the air, suggested that they pick up a hire car, find a motel, get a good night's sleep and then drive out to visit the Prophet in the morning. Gerard had refused point blank. The less time they spend unprotected and vulnerable in unknown, potentially hostile territory, the better. He's already twitchy and irritable  as they make their way slowly through the airport, but, then again, airports almost always have this effect on him. He watches Mikey like a hawk, purely out of habit. The rhythms of it are probably punched into his DNA by now like marks on ticker tape.

 

At the car hire desk, Gerard answers a string of increasingly banal, pointless questions about insurance and payment options while a middle-aged, motherly woman rattles through a seemingly interminable succession of tiers and choices. Meanwhile, Mikey loiters nearby, occasionally making sympathetic faces at Gerard. When Gerard finally signs the last form and is rewarded with a large plastic keychain, he thanks her as politely as he can, and turns away to find Mikey pressing a peace offering into his hands: a Styrofoam cup. It steams gently, warm in his sweaty hands, but the heady, spiky scent of coffee more than makes up for it.

 

 

*

 

 

The thing about the cobra's nest is that it's very difficult to find, unless they want you to find it. Fortunately, the Ways have an ace to play, and that ace is Mikey. He sits in the passenger seat, a frown line settling between his eyebrows as he concentrates.

 

"It's kind of like a neon sign," Mikey says, rubbing his temples. "Only I can't see it, it's sort of... humming. It's more like I can hear it. Nearly. Take the next exit."

 

Gerard pulls smoothly off the highway, looking at Mikey for confirmation, and Mikey nods.

 

"This is the right way, at least," he says, a little uncertainly. Gerard trusts him. Mikey doesn't pick up enough to be called a Medium, and he usually tries to pretend he doesn't pick up anything at all, but Mikey's abilities have saved both their lives more than once.

 

"There," says Mikey abruptly, breaking the silence almost an hour later. Startled, Gerard jumps in his seat, swearing loudly.

 

"Jesus _Christ_ ," he says, with feeling. "Don't do that to me. What's up?"

 

"Over there." Mikey points, and Gerard squints. He thinks he can make out a tiny shape, just about breaking the flat, dark horizon. His eyes are gritty and bleary with sleeplessness, making it hard to tell what it is.

 

"You think that's the place?" he says. He doesn't know which answer he's dreading more. On one hand, he's so fucking tired. On the other, his gut is still screaming at him to turn the car around, put his foot to the floor and put as much distance as possible between Mikey and that house.

 

"That's it," Mikey says firmly. "C'mon, we're nearly there."

 

As they draw closer to the little shape on the horizon, it grows slowly into something recognizable as a house. It looks bizarre, a large, sprawling pile sitting incongruously in the middle of nowhere - almost as if it was picked up by a tornado, Wizard of Oz style, and just dropped here in the desert. The house almost seems to be exhaling music from its very bricks and timbers, and every window is a patch of bright light in the boundless darkness of the desert. Gerard pulls up a safe distance away, then hesitates. He can't quite seem to prise his hands from the wheel.

 

"It'll be fine," Mikey says, quiet but sure. "Really. Come on." He opens the passenger door and climbs out, and Gerard follows suit. He feels the bruising kiss of the chill on his cheeks like a blessing after the hours spent in the hot car, and the freshness of the air flooding his lungs loosens the knot of tension in his stomach a little. He stretches, letting out a muffled grunt of pleasure as his spine clicks.

 

They walk up to the front door shoulder to shoulder, both unconsciously sliding into the grooves worn by a decade and a half of habit. They've already fallen into step with each other, trying to present as small a target as possible. It's always a good precaution to take, especially when you don't know how good a shot your enemy is. Mikey stops within arm's length of the door, glancing at Gerard. _You ready?_

 

Gerard steels himself and nods once, raising his fist to knock, but the door swings open of its own accord before he can lay so much as a finger on it. Behind it stands a girl, with long, dark hair and a slightly tousled, sleepy look about her that belies the sharpness of her eyes. She's barefoot, her torn, oversized shirt slipping down over one delicate shoulder to create a soft, guileless air that doesn't fool Gerard for a second.

 

"Hi," says Mikey, for once not waiting for Gerard to speak first.  "We're--"

 

"We know who you are," she cuts in, "And why you're here." Her eyes dart up and down, taking them in - checking for the tell-tale bulges of shoulder holsters or any other hidden weapons, no doubt. Gerard knows her by reputation; she was one of the best hunters in the game before the Prophet decided he wanted her, and then that was that. Her name is Victoria Asher, and she isn't someone any right-thinking person would want to cross. She eyes them both for a long moment, her expression impossible to read, then, without a word, turns and walks back into the hallway. Gerard and Mikey exchange glances. She doesn't look back to see if they're following, either, but, with an unpleasant lurch of trepidation, Gerard does, and Mikey steps inside after him.

 

The hallway is dimly lit by lamps draped in jewel-colored silk, and the walls are covered in heavy, old-fashioned damask paper. Their footsteps are silenced by the thick carpet on the floor, and Gerard whistles. "You've redecorated," he says. He's been here once before, many years ago, back when the Prophet was just a weirdo stoner who lived all on his own in the middle of the desert and ranted about snakes and the end of the world. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and Gerard has done his best to forget as much of it as possible since then, but he distinctly remembers the cobra's nest being something more akin to a corrugated steel shack.

 

Victoria doesn't answer, just pads away into the gloom with the Ways on her heels. There's a funny smell in the air, sweet, almost like incense, but dark and rich and strange. Mikey raises a warning eyebrow at Gerard. _Behave_.

 

"I _am_ ," Gerard hisses, momentarily forgetting himself and eliciting a look sharp enough to skin a deer with from Victoria. The pale reflection of his face in the large, gilt-framed mirror on the wall looks distinctly guilty.

 

Victoria leads the two of them through another door and down another hallway, this one crammed with vaguely disturbing black and gold statuary and odd things in glass cases, and more silk-draped lamps. Gerard can still hear the music, but it doesn't sound as if they're any closer to its source now than they were outside. There are occasional spikes of laughter and conversation, apparently from other rooms, and he wonders just how many people are in the house. The Prophet and his entourage don't even number ten, if the rumors are to be believed. Victoria runs her fingertips along an enormous snakeskin nailed to the wall as she passes, and Gerard twitches slightly. Gross. Not to mention tasteless.

 

The house is a dark labyrinth of rooms and hallways, all of them similarly extravagantly furnished. The odd smell intensifies, but neither the voices nor the music seem to get any louder. Panic begins to curdle in Gerard's gut again. He's disoriented, unable to remember which way they came; if the time comes for them to run he won't have the faintest idea how to get out. He wonders whether there's a monster at the heart of this maze, if it was all a trap, if a thread around his wrist and trailing in his wake could have saved them.

 

"Hey," Mikey whispers, grabbing Gerard's hand. Mikey knows Gerard like the back of his own hand, but even if he didn't, Gerard is sure his thoughts must be showing on his face. He always was a lousy liar. "I know. I know. But we're okay, I'm not getting any bad vibes. I mean, we're not her favorite people--" he jerks his head in Victoria's direction, "--But she isn't planning to kill us. I'd know."

 

"Yeah?" Gerard feels slightly better, and the urge to scream recedes from the back of his throat. The heavy perfume in the air is making his head spin and making it hard to think straight. He forces the panic back down.

 

"Yes," Mikey says firmly. "I know you hate it, but nothing's gonna go wrong. Trust me."

 

Gerard still doesn't like it, and he'd still feel much better with a gun in his hands, but he does trust Mikey. Mikey just knows these things sometimes, just like he sometimes knows when it's going to rain and where the dead things in the dirt aren't resting as peacefully as they should be.

 

"Wait here," Victoria says coolly, once they've caught up with her, and she disappears through another door. They're in a small antechamber, half of which is taken up by a large cowhide couch. Mikey slouches obligingly over to it and sits down, but Gerard doesn't much feel like staying still. He wanders over to the glass tank on the far side of the room. There's a huge, glistening snake watching him from inside, the dark coils of its body glimmering faintly in the light. Its tongue flickers out and back in, its black eyes fixed unblinkingly on his face. Gerard thinks uneasily of the Prophet's own eyes. He has the nasty feeling that the man himself is looking out at him through the snake's eyes, laughing.

 

He shudders and looks away. He always hated snakes. He starts to pace the small room instead, measuring it out from side to side, end to end. There's some sort of animal pelt covering some of the dark floorboards, something sleek and black, and there are heavy blood-red velvet hangings on the walls.

 

"This place looks like a fucking brothel," Gerard mutters, glancing surreptitiously over his shoulder to make sure Victoria hasn't slipped back into the room while he wasn't looking.

 

Mikey's eyes dart up from the screen of his phone, one corner of his mouth twitching slightly. "I kinda like it."

 

"You would," Gerard says darkly. He knows it doesn't mean a thing, but he'd rather Mikey didn't get too fond of anything about this place, not even the décor. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the snake's tail flicking lazily from side to side, and he suppresses another shudder of revulsion. The sooner they get out of this goddamn house, the better. Gerard scuffs his heel against the mysterious fur on the floor, trying not to think about what it might have been.

 

"Lame," says Mikey pityingly, catching the word between his teeth and stretching it out like a piece of gum. "We're the monsters' monsters and you're getting all squeamish over a bit of dead animal?"

 

Gerard opens his mouth to snipe back, but then the door is swinging open again.

 

"He'll see you now," says Victoria. She looks annoyed, her pretty mouth pressed into a hard line. "Through there." She motions them towards the door she's just come through.

 

Beyond the door is a cavernous room, lit by the candles that sprout from every surface like mushrooms. There are several people sitting and lounging in a loose circle on silk cushions the floor, singing softly. The song, if that's what is, is eerie and atonal, without words or any sort of rhythm. The soft, fluttering light throws grotesque shadows on the wall for a split second at a time before whipping them away again. The sweetly pervasive scent is stronger than ever here in this holy of holies, but now it's underpinned by the more familiar smell of weed.

 

And there he is, sprawled in a comically huge and luxuriously upholstered armchair in the very middle of the room - the bastard saint of rogues and runaways, the fucked up stoner messiah for the lost boys and girls, the king cobra in his jeweled nest. The Prophet. He's lazing in his throne, watching his courtiers indulgently. He doesn't actually have a crown on his head, but it isn't too much a stretch to imagine it. His legs are splayed wide, his hair disheveled, a lazy grin on his face and a half-smoked joint in his hand.

 

"Mikey!" he sing-songs, throwing his arms out in welcome. "And Gerard. The two Ways. Both Ways!"

 

Surprisingly enough, the Prophet is not the first person who's made that joke. Gerard doesn't crack a smile.

 

"C'mon, then, c'mere," says the Prophet happily, beckoning them closer, the blunt leaving a pearly trail of smoke in the candlelit gloom.

 

"Gabe," Gerard says, as civilly as he can manage.

 

"Aw, why so serious, big brother?" Gabe flings his arm around Mikey and ruffles his hair. Gerard's hands twitch at his sides. Mikey hates that. If anyone else had pulled the same stunt, they would have found themselves with the barrel of a loaded gun up their nose before they'd even had time to blink.

 

But Mikey just chuckles, and gives Gabe's shoulder an affectionate shove. His dirty singlet has slipped sideways, revealing the tattoo on his shoulder: a snake, curled into an unending ring and sinking its fangs into its own tail. Ouroboros. The Prophet's mark. Gerard knows he'd find the same symbol on each and every other person in the room, if he took the time to check.

 

"Hey, Gabe. Long time no see," says Mikey, lightly, and Gabe turns wide, reproachful eyes on Gerard.

 

"See?" he says. "Your baby brother knows how to treat a man. He knows how to enjoy himself. You want anything? Drinks? Food?" he waggles the joint in their direction enquiringly. "Something else? You've come a long way, little birds."

 

"No thanks," Gerard says firmly. "We're not hungry." Unfortunately,  his treacherous stomach has other ideas, and it growls resentfully. Gerard ignores it. He'll starve to death before he accepts so much as a crust of bread from Gabe. There are cautionary tales from all corners of the globe about places like this: one bite of the food, one sip of the wine, and you're trapped. Permanently.

 

"Mikey?" Gabe glances up at him, one of his long-fingered hands curling around Mikey's hip in a proprietary way that Gerard does not like at all. "Anything you want. My treat. Let it never be said that I don't take care of my guests." He looks pointedly at Gerard.

 

"I'll have a beer," Mikey says. Gerard looks daggers at him. What the hell does Mikey think he's playing at?

 

"Two beers," says Gabe, and before Gerard can open his mouth to object, Gabe has raised one languid hand and snapped his fingers. A tall, lanky figure detaches itself from the group sitting on the floor and ambles over to Gabe. As it emerges from the half-darkness, it reveals itself to be a boy, and despite the long limbs and delicate bones that betray his youth, there's something about him. It's the same ancient, primal otherness that people sometimes glimpse in Mikey, but while Mikey works so hard to disguise it, it's shining from this boy's pores like moonlight. His eyes are glazed, his pupils blown wide in infinite, cosmic black.

 

For all his caution and his resolve, Gerard is momentarily struck dumb. The alien grace and the strange, startling beauty of the boy are hypnotic. Inhuman. This, Gerard realizes, must be Gabe's changeling boy.

 

"Two beers, William," Gabe says, in an offhand sort of voice that suggests he's used to being obeyed without question.

 

"Coming right up," William says, and before he vanishes into the smoky half-light, he flashes a dazzling smile at Mikey. Gerard wonders if William can see Mikey for what he really is, although he suspects that Gabe will have told him anyway. William seems like a very different creature to Mikey, that's for sure. Would Mikey be the same, so incandescently strange, if he just stopped hiding? Or is it something about this place that makes William so blinding? He looks Mikey up and down, trying to work out whether it's just his own paranoia making Mikey look a shade or two brighter already.

 

"How's tricks, huh?" Gabe asks Mikey, still not loosening the arm around his waist. "It's been so long, was it something I said?" he contorts his face into an extreme mock pout. Gerard holds his tongue.

 

"Shut up," says Mikey, rolling his eyes. "You know it wasn't, c'mon. We're pretty busy right now."

 

"Yeah," Gerard chimes in, spotting a rare opportunity to steer the inane small talk towards the reason they came to this godforsaken place. "There's been some funny stuff going on. That's why--"

 

But Gabe waves his unvoiced question away like an irritating fly, and Gerard shuts his mouth. As much as it infuriates him - and, Christ, does it ever - Gabe isn't one of those people who responds well to straight talking. He likes his glamour and his mystique, does Gabe. Some people say he's got flair. Gerard says he's compensating for something.

 

"Are you still rattling around in that old car?" Gabe says sweetly, and Gerard bristles.

 

Mikey nods. "Yeah. It's not so bad, sometimes Gee even lets me pick the music." He shoots Gerard a wry smile, which Gerard does not return.

 

Gabe sighs melodramatically, and it's then that William reappears with two beers in his hands.

 

"Here you go," he says, handing one each to Gerard and Mikey, who immediately lapse back into their easy banter. His smile is wide and utterly guileless, and Gerard doesn't have the heart to tell him that he didn't even want it. He sighs, and lets William open the bottle for him. William's huge, starry eyes are fixed on Gerard's face, and he looks like there's something he wants to say. Gerard raises an eyebrow enquiringly.

 

"Okay," says William tentatively, pocketing the bottle opener again. "Can I just say-- I think what you do is really cool."

 

Gerard blinks, confused. "What, hunting?" he says. "That can't be new, you live in a house full of ex-hunters." Most of the ex-hunters in question are sitting around on the floor, apparently drugged up to the eyeballs, which admittedly makes them rather less of a worry. Only Victoria seems truly compos mentis, although she's more than enough of a threat on her own.

 

"No, no," William says. "I mean... you know, looking out for him." He jerks his head in Mikey's direction. "I'd heard the rumors about a hunter and a changeling, I just didn't believe them. It's gotta be hard, keeping the other hunters off his back. They'd be all over him if they found out. But you cover for him, right? That's pretty cool of you. Not many hunters would do that."

 

"Oh," says Gerard, slightly taken aback. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "I guess I never really thought about it like that." It's true, he realizes as the words leave his mouth. The thought of turning Mikey in and leaving him at the mercy of other hunters has never even crossed his mind, not once in all these years. The thought sends a shudder of horror rattling down his spine. "I mean," he says, "He's my brother. He's all the family I've got left."

 

"Still," William insists, his eyes shining. "You're a good guy."

 

Gerard doesn't think anyone has ever said that to him before, and it catches him quite by surprise. Before he can say another word, William has melted back into the darkness. The last part of him to vanish is his Cheshire cat smile, a pale crescent of teeth in the gloom. Feeling Gabe's eyes on him like a solid, greasy thing against his skin, Gerard raises his beer to his mouth and pretends to drink. Mikey follows suit, but Gerard sees his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, and groans inwardly. _Oh, Mikey, no_.

 

"So," Mikey says, running a hand affectionately through Gabe's hair. "I'm sure you already know this isn't a social call."

 

Gabe clutches theatrically at his heart. "You wound me, you cruel boy," he declares.

 

"You'll live," Mikey says drily. "We need your help."

 

"Oh? My help?" repeats Gabe, wide-eyed.

 

"Stop playing dumb," Gerard snaps, irritated beyond belief by Gabe and his stupid affectations and his wandering hands. "You know why we're here."

 

Gabe raises an eyebrow. "Careful, little bird," he says evenly, "Or Victoria might have to teach you how to watch that mouth of yours."

 

Mikey shoots Gerard a warning look and he subsides into resentful silence, still seething.

 

"We wanted to talk to you," Mikey carries on, as if nothing happened. "We came to ask you if you'd seen anything... weird. Anything, you know, out of the ordinary."

 

Gabe chuckles. "Define ordinary," he says, taking a long drag and tipping his head back languidly. "You two hunt monsters for a living, Mikey here isn't even human and I see the future."

 

"Weird for us." Mikey seems quite unperturbed by Gabe's deliberate pussyfooting around the subject. "Monsters behaving strangely, psychics having nightmares. Anything. We figured you were the one to ask," he adds slyly. Well done, Mikey, Gerard thinks approvingly. That's the way to play an ego like Gabe's. Gabe pretends to think hard, and Gerard pretends to drink some more of his beer.

 

"Yeah," Gabe says, and suddenly every last note of sleaze and mockery seems to have dropped right out of his voice. Gerard's stomach turns, something like dread percolating in there. Whatever is coming, he suddenly doesn't want to hear it. Nothing good can possibly come of this. He suppresses the childish urge to clap his hands over his ears and hum loudly, just to block out whatever dire news they're about to receive, as if by not hearing it he can stop it being true. "But you're not gonna like it."

 

"Go on," Mikey says, grimly.

 

Gabe's eyes are dark and fathomless in the gloom, like frayed spots in the fabric of reality where a glimpse of the void beyond is bleeding through. "Something wicked this way comes," he says softly, his voice suddenly hoarse. The air around him seems to crackle, charged and alive.

 

Gerard yawns as ostentatiously as he dares, trying to crush the shiver of apprehension rattling down his spine. _Something wicked this way comes_ , seriously?

 

"You can laugh," Gabe says. His voice is expressionless, his eyes completely black. A wisp of smoke coils sinuously around his long fingers. "Laugh, little bird. It's coming for you."

 

"For _me_?" Gerard repeats, momentarily forgetting to sound condescending.

 

"For us all," intones Gabe. "It's coming."

 

"What's coming, Gabe?" Mikey asks, his voice low, urgent. Gerard's head is spinning. "C'mon, just tell us what you've seen. What is it?"

 

"I don't know," Gabe says tonelessly, and Gerard's stomach twists. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't that. And he doesn't like it.

 

"What? Then... how do you know?" Mikey asks, doubtfully. Gerard knows Mikey doesn't like to question Gabe, but Mikey is Mikey. He won't believe in anything unless it's bitten him in the ass at least once - monster-hunting career notwithstanding. The two beers sit forgotten in Gerard and Mikey's hands, slowly warming in the hazy room.

 

Gabe turns his fathomless, unseeing gaze on Mikey. "Ripples, little bird," he says. "It's powerful. The hunters, the monsters, the Sensitives; they can all feel it. The anomalies are going to come faster and faster as it gets closer. It could tear the world apart before the storm even hits. But you should pay a visit to Maman Brigitte's," says Gabe, closing his eyes. "She'll be able to tell you more." He falls silent, those terrible, fathoms-deep eyes fluttering closed. The half-smoked joint slips from between his fingers and gutters out on the floor, the orange glow blinking into nothingness.

 

"Maman Brigitte's," Mikey repeats. "Got it. Thanks, Gabe."

 

Gabe doesn't answer.

 

"Gabe?" Mikey makes as if to touch Gabe's shoulder, then stops.

 

"Let's go," Gerard mutters, glancing over his shoulder. This place gives him the creeps, and Gabe has obviously said as much as he can - or perhaps just as much as he wants to, but it amounts to the same thing.

 

Mikey looks down at Gabe, a frown line appearing between his eyebrows. "Fine," he says. "C'mon."

 

They make their way carefully back to where they came in, sticking close together. The group of smoke-wreathed figures on the floor have stopped their singing, and are watching Gerard and Mikey unblinkingly.

 

"Fuckin' house of horrors, I swear to god," Gerard growls, shooting a calculating sidelong look at them.

 

Mikey rolls his eyes. "You can't tell me it was a wasted trip," he says quietly.

 

"Oh, yeah, real useful," Gerard snipes back. "Some bullshit about the big bad wolf."

 

"And--" Mikey starts, then stops short. They've reached the door, and it swings open apparently of its own volition. Victoria is standing in the doorway, and for a split second her face looks troubled. But she wipes it clean again, and turns without a word, leading them back into the dimly lit hallway and through the rabbit warren of the house. Victoria is silent, and somehow neither Mikey nor Gerard feels like talking. Gerard supposes Mikey must be lost in his own thoughts too.

 

The journey through the house seems shorter this time, and Victoria all but pushes them out of the door and slams it behind them.

 

"Charming girl," Mikey says drily, raising his hand to shield his eyes. Dawn is breaking, the clouds edged with burning pink and gold and setting the desert sky ablaze.

 

"Tell me about it." Gerard inhales deeply. The air is cold and crystal clear, the chill sweeping away the sweet incense and pot smoke clogging his lungs. His head feels clearer now, the unease he felt inside the house suddenly seeming faintly ridiculous. "Let's get going, we'll take the next flight back to Newark. I'll drive, you can sleep."

 

"Nah, I'm good," Mikey says, but Gerard sees him stifle a yawn, and he smiles fondly. "I'll sleep on the flight."

 

Gerard unlocks the car and they both climb in. He turns the key in the ignition, the engine purrs and they speed away with a shriek of tires and a plume of sand, the house behind them shrinking away in the rear view mirror.

 

 

*

 

 

"Maman Brigitte's, huh?" says Gerard. They're flying over the dusty Midwest, the country unfurling below them under the blinding sky. "That mean anything to you?"

 

"It does, actually." Mikey swirls his diet coke around idly, the ice cubes clicking against the plastic cup. The frown line between his eyebrows is back. "Maman Brigitte is a Voodoo loa. Baron Samedi's wife."

 

" _Voodoo?_ " Gerard groans, then glances around and lowers his voice. "Aw, hell, not again. Have you already forgotten the last time we got involved with that crap?" he hisses.

 

Mikey looks thoroughly sick. "Believe me," he says darkly. "I've tried."

 

"So, _Gabe_ thinks we should go and find this Maman Brigitte, huh?"

 

"Apparently."

 

"You think he means the actual, y'know, goddess?"

 

"Loa."

 

"Same thing."

 

"Not really."

 

"Whatever. You think he wants us to find a Voodoo priest and... I don't know, summon her?"

 

Mikey lets out a long breath. "I don't know," he says. "Anyway, he said we should visit Maman Brigitte's. Visit her _what_ , her followers? Are we looking for a Voodoo cult?"

 

"Dunno," Gerard says, shrugging. "Maybe. We should ask Ray, though, he might know something."

 

"Hmm." Mikey makes a vague noise of agreement and looks out of the window. Sensing that this isn't the time to talk, Gerard leans back in his narrow, uncomfortable seat and closes his eyes. They have a few more hours to kill before their flight is due to land, and he's tired and his head is full of things he doesn't want to think about, like a hornet's nest has been broken open.

 

Back in Newark, they shuffle bleary-eyed through the lines of people in the airport and find a cab to take them back to Ray's place. Gerard calls ahead from the cab's back seat, just to let him know they're on their way. He sounds relieved and Gerard feels faintly guilty again, although this time it's muffled by his gritty eyes and pounding headache.

 

Newark's streets are empty, the cab shooting through the warm, overcast morning like a bullet. Gerard's head is pounding, a hard knot of anxiety forming in the pit of his stomach. He needs a drink. He glances down at his watch. Eleven twenty-four. Christ.

 

"Hey." Mikey nudges him gently. "You okay?"

 

"Mm? Oh. Yeah, I'm... I'm good."

 

Mikey knows he isn't, but he doesn't pursue it.

 

 

*

 

 

"You two look awful," Ray says, evidently concerned, ushering them inside when they finally make it back to his place. "Come in, come in. Oh my god, you both stink. Showers and bed, I think."

 

"Yeah, yeah," Gerard says, shrugging off Ray's firm hand between his shoulderblades. "In a minute. Can I have a coffee?"

 

"Coffee is the last thing you need," Ray says severely, folding his arms. "You haven't slept, have you?"

 

"Jesus Christ, Ray! Who are you, my mother?" Gerard snaps, glaring.

 

"Closest thing you've got left, yeah," Ray retorts. He doesn't back down, and he doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't need to. Gerard subsides, chastened.

 

"Sorry," he mutters. "But we wanted to talk to you about what Gabe said. We think it might be important."

 

Ray sighs. "Fine," he says. "I'm gonna make some food. I'll cook, you talk. And then you're both going to bed. Deal?"

 

"Deal," says Mikey, stifling a yawn and pushing a hand through his hair and turning it into a greasy rat's maze. They traipse into the kitchen after Ray, who's already clattering about with pans on the burner. While Ray fries bacon and tomatoes and toasts thick slices of bread, Gerard and Mikey give him the rundown of what they managed to get out of Gabe. Gerard is too tired even to bitch about how Gabe gets more and more obnoxious by the year, and his eyes are heavy and his head is throbbing like a fresh bruise.

 

When Ray finally sets down two plates in front of them, he looks even more troubled. "Shit," he says, dropping heavily into a chair. "Even Gabe sounds worried. That's really bad news."

 

Gerard grunts in agreement. Mikey is shoveling food into his mouth as if he hasn't eaten in a month, and doesn't speak.

 

"You're telling me," Gerard mumbles around a forkful of hash browns. He swallows. The food is warming him through from the inside out and he desperately wants to sleep, just lay his head down and stop thinking for a few blessed, peaceful hours. "So," he says, suddenly remembering why he was so adamant about going straight to bed when they arrived. "This... Maman Brigitte. Mikey says it's a Voodoo thing, but that doesn't really give us a lot to go on. Any bright ideas?"

 

"What? Oh, that? That's easy," says Ray. He looks preoccupied, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

 

"It is?" says Mikey, evidently so surprised that he actually stops chewing for long enough to get the words out.

 

"Yeah. You're over-thinking it." Ray leans back, scratching absent-mindedly at his battle-scarred face, his blunt nails rasping over his stubble. "Maman Brigitte's. You're not looking for her followers or anything like that, it's a place. Sort of a roadhouse, I guess, but it's kind of... you know, off the beaten track, down near Lake Pontchartrain. I had no idea that place was still going. Must be under new management."

 

"You think so? It's not just Gabe stringing us along?" Gerard takes another mechanical bite of his food, barely tasting it. He's distantly aware that his body is ravenous, but his brain is so exhausted that eating has slipped down several places on his list of priorities.

 

"Oh, yeah. Used to be a pretty big deal for hunters, back in the day. That was twenty years ago, though, at least. I wonder who runs it now."

 

"Does it matter?" Gerard asks, making a conscious effort not to sound too argumentative. He's grateful that Gabe's little riddle has a simple answer, he really is. "Anyway, I guess we should head down there, see what we can find out." He looks over at Mikey just in time to see him folding an entire rasher of bacon into his mouth and appearing to swallow it whole.

 

"You're disgusting," Gerard informs him, dispassionately. "You think we should go check it out?"

 

Mikey nods, tapping his fork thoughtfully against his plate. Gerard feels as though the noise is chipping away at his remaining sanity.

 

"Yeah," Mikey says. "Why not? We haven't got any other leads to chase. Ray, you know how to get there, right?"

 

"Sure, sure," says  Ray vaguely, still looking distracted. "You both done there?"

 

Gerard and Mikey make noises of assent, and Ray gets to his feet and starts to clear away the plates. "Bed, both of you," he says firmly. "Go on, I'll clean up here."

 

Mumbling their thanks around yawns and stretches, the two of them get up and make their way up the stairs.

 

"You can have the shower first," Gerard says, dragging his feet.

 

"You sure?"

 

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna... rest my legs for a bit."

 

"'Kay. Sweet dreams."

 

"Fuck you, I'm not gonna fall asleep before you get back," Gerard grumbles as they reach the landing, shoving at Mikey.

 

"Whatever you say, old man," Mikey says serenely, pushing the bathroom door open. Gerard doesn't deign to reply, and instead follows the hallway until he reaches Ray's spare room. He sits down heavily on one of the camp beds with a creak of protesting springs, and reaches down to unlace his boots. Once he's worked them off his feet, he sits back up, rubbing his eyes. They're gritty and sore, stinging. He leans back, his legs still dangling over the edge of the bed, the worn sheets soft on the nape of his neck, the backs of his arms. The ceiling fan turns slowly and a breath of cool, fresh air drifts in through the open window. He lets out a long, slow breath and lets his eyes flutter closed.

 

Sleep closes over him quietly, like water over the body of a man lying on the shore. His brain stills, his headache fades, and, in his last conscious moment, there's a bright shard of beautiful, blessed peace.

 

 

*

 

 

When Gerard wakes - suddenly, violently, as usual, hounded by dreams full of sharp stabs of terror and sharper teeth - the sun is sinking ponderously back into the horizon. Someone - probably Mikey - has thrown a blanket over him, he realizes, as he tries to raise one hand to push the hair out of his face.

 

He sits up, yawning.

 

"Morning," says Mikey drily from the other bed, where he's sitting fully dressed and toying idly with his cell phone.

 

"Fuck off," Gerard mumbles, rubbing his eyes. "What time is it?"

 

Mikey glances down at his wrist. "Seven," he says. "PM. You sleep alright?"

 

"What? Oh. Yeah, fine." With a concerted effort, he throws the blanket off. "I'm gonna go shower," he says, stretching. God, it's good to sleep in an actual bed. "Then we should get going."

 

"What, now?"

 

"Yeah. Why not? Won't be the first time we've driven through the night. Anyway, the night's best time to drive. Nice quiet roads." Gerard is keen to get going, now that they have a plan of action. It's probably just the imprint of so many years' accumulated habit, like the grave dirt under his nails, but he doesn't like to stay in any one place for too long. Mikey makes a vague noise of assent, now deeply immersed in his phone, and Gerard stumbles off to look for a clean towel.

 

Fifteen minutes later, he's freshly-scrubbed and clean-shaven, sitting at Ray's kitchen table with a strong coffee while Ray and Mikey examine the maps spread over the tabletop.

 

"You got that?" Ray asks, looking enquiringly at Mikey. Mikey nods thoughtfully, tracing the route with one long finger.

 

"Yeah," he says. "I think we'll find it. Thanks, Ray."

 

"No problem," says Ray distractedly, gathering the maps into his arms and trying not to drop any. "Oh, and before you go, there's something else I was gonna show you."

 

"Oh?" says Gerard, intrigued. Whatever it is, it'll be something worth seeing.

 

"Mhm. Come on, it's down in the basement." Ray leads the way out of the kitchen, Gerard and Mikey trailing in his wake. Gerard shoots Mikey a quizzical look, but Mikey just shrugs.

 

"I've been working on this for a while," Ray says, looking back over his shoulder as he starts down the stairs. "You know. Funny shit going on, thought someone ought to keep an eye on things. Call it a pet project. It's about the only thing I'm still good for." He doesn't quite succeed in keeping the bitter note out of his voice.

 

Ray unlocks the heavy door with a key from the ring on his belt and pushes it open, pulling the grubby cord and lighting up the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. Most of the basement seems to be taken up by a hotchpotch assortment of tables, over which is spread an enormous map of the states.

 

Gerard lets out a low whistle. There are at least a hundred little colored pins sticking out of the map, each and every one meticulously labelled. He's no neat freak, but he can recognize a beautiful feat of organization when he sees one.

 

"Holy shit," breathes Mikey, sidling up to the nearest table and running a wondering hand over the cluster of orange pins sprouting from it. "Ray, this is..."

 

"Well." Ray shrugs modestly. "I've had a lot of time on my hands. This is every bit of weirdness that's been brought to my attention in the last six months. It's, uh, color-coded. Chronologically and geographically."

 

Mikey is gazing at Ray with the air of a man seeing the face of god for the first time. "Dude," he says, apparently lost for words. "Dude."

 

Ray shoots him a broad, megawatt grin. "So," he says, moving closer to the map and indicating a sweep of scattered green pins near the Canadian border. "If you look at the patterns - time-wise, I mean - you can start to see the shape of it."

 

"What are we looking for?" asks Gerard, frowning slightly. This is Mikey's area, not his.

 

"Ripples," says Ray, this time gesturing to a rash of yellow pins  in Nevada. "See how it's spreading out, kind of like a spiral? It looks like New Orleans is right in the middle of it. If I was looking for a place to start, that's where I'd go."

 

"Okay," Mikey says slowly. His eyes rove over the map, and Gerard can see the fluorescent tube light overhead reflected in his glasses. "But what does it mean?"

 

"No idea," says Ray, his mouth now pressed into an unhappy line. He shakes his head. "Absolutely no idea. That's why you two need to haul your asses down to New Orleans and see what you can dig up."

 

So they say a grateful goodbye to Ray and head back out to the car, Gerard doing his best not to notice the downturned corners of Ray's mouth and the line between his eyebrows.

 

"We'll be back before you know it," Mikey says, but all three of them know it's a lie.

 

"Just can't get rid of you, can I?" says Ray, in a falsely bright voice that sounds flat and hollow in the warm, twilit evening. "Stay safe."

 

"Yeah," Gerard says, with a slightly wry smile. No hunter alive could promise that. "See you, Ray."

 

Ray hugs them both tightly, and it's a mark of how much Mikey cares for Ray that he doesn't try to squirm away like he normally does when someone hugs him. Ray watches from the front porch as Gerard shoulders the small bag containing clean clothes and Mikey tucks the sheaf of maps and instructions under his arm. The two of them walk over to the car, unconsciously falling into step with each other. Gerard unlocks the door, slings the bag into the back seat and slides into the driver's side, flexing his fingers in front of the wheel. He feels better already. They gave a plan, they have directions, they have miles and miles and miles of dark, quiet roads ahead of them. Gerard has his brother and his car and all his guns. This, he thinks, is probably about as good as it gets.

 

Mikey climbs into the passenger seat, shuffling his maps with a look of intense concentration. Gerard feels a strange, sudden little pang of affection. God knows Mikey isn't the best navigator in the world, but he tries.

 

They drive through the gathering dusk, the car's engine singing as they fly down quiet streets. They weave their way through Belleville's outskirts, passing in and out of pools of light as the streetlamps flick by outside. Mikey fucks around with the radio tuner, and Black Magic Woman crackles and emerges from the static.

 

"Not funny," Gerard says darkly. "Turn that off."

 

"You're a miserable bastard, you know that?" says Mikey, with a put-upon sigh. "Fine. I'll put something else on." He rummages in the glove compartment, mutters, "Gotcha," and, a few moments later, the percussive heartbeat of When The Levee Breaks fills the car instead.

 

"Better," Gerard concedes, and he hits the gas.

 

They drive for hours, devouring the deserted highway as fast as it can unfurl ahead of them. Sometimes, they break the silence to bitch about the other's taste in music, driving skills and the like, but mostly they just sit quietly together, both lost in their own heads.

 

At around two AM, they stop to trade places and get coffee at an all-night diner in Winchester, Maryland. Gerard settles into the passenger seat, his hands curled around his paper cup, the maps spread out in his lap. This is his favorite time to travel, when the roads are quiet and it's just the two of them and the darkness and everything that lurks within it.

 

They set off again along the road that passes through Devil's Backbone woods. Gerard remembers one particular case from several years ago that he and Mikey worked in this very forest - a manticore, devouring unwary hikers, clothes and all.

 

"You're thinking about the manticore, aren't you," says Mikey, with a slight smile.

 

"Yeah." Gerard chuckles, gazing out at the dense trees that crowd close to the sides of the highway. "Long time ago."

 

Really, it wasn't even that long ago. Six years, maybe seven. But it feels like a memory of something glimpsed in a dream now, something vaguely strange that happened to other people who weren't quite them. Maybe he's just getting older, but Gerard is almost sure the whole business was a lot simpler back in the day. Back then, you tracked down your monster, killed it, had a celebratory drink and a greasy burger, then you left town again as quietly as you'd come. Back then, you didn't have to go chasing prophets and Voodoo loa. Maybe it's time he retired. He could get a cat - hell, he could get five cats, and take up baking and learn to paint. He snorts. As if.

 

"What's funny?" Mikey asks, raising an eyebrow.

 

"Nothing," Gerard says, the image of himself in a frilly apron still swimming before his eyes. He turns up the music (Bad Moon Rising, one of Mikey's favorites). It seems appropriate, with the star-strewn sky stretching endlessly overhead and the moon hanging there, suspended, like a fat, luminous pearl. Mikey shoots Gerard one of his rare, true smiles, and they drive on through the night.

 

It takes them another four hours to reach Roanoke. The dawn is poised to break, spreading slowly across the clear sky.

 

"Let's stop here," Gerard says. "I'm hungry, I need some fucking pancakes or something. And my back's killing me."

 

"Fine by me," Mikey yawns. "I could use a break. We can get something to eat, maybe check the local papers. You know, just to make sure there's nothing going on here."

 

"I thought we were going to look for this... Maman Brigitte's place?"

 

"We are," Mikey says, pulling into the parking lot of an IHOP. "But we can pass it on to someone else, like--" he stops. _Like I did with Jepha._

 

"Hey," Gerard says softly, ignoring the way his gut twists with frustrated grief. He nudges Mikey gently. "I told you not to worry about that. It wasn't your fault. Those guys must've offed a hundred vamps between them. You didn't know it was all gonna go south."

 

"No, I know that," says Mikey, frowning. He doesn't move to get out of the car, his hands still resting on the wheel. "That's what's bothering me. They knew what they were doing. They knew how to handle vamps. What the hell happened in there? Jepha wouldn't tell me."

 

"Can you blame him?" Gerard says. "If something happened to you, I wouldn't want..." he trails off, unable to finish that train of thought. "Anyway. There's nothing we can do now." He has trouble getting the words out, as if he's coughing up razor blades. "Come on. Let's eat."

 

They both gorge themselves on enormous stacks of pancakes and two more cups of coffee (bitter and black for Gerard, milky and heavily sugared for Mikey), then take a walk through the sleepy town. The sun is just coming up, blindingly bright, promising a scorching day ahead. They gather up as many local newspapers as they can carry and retreat to a café, taking seats at a table in the far corner and spreading the papers out between them. There's a long line of people at the counter, most of them bleary-eyed and yawning, all making their various ways to offices and stores and restaurants and schools.

 

"Poor bastards," Gerard mutters, eyeing them pityingly. "Imagine having a real job. God, it must be fuckin' awful."

 

Mikey looks up at him, his pen hovering above the column of newsprint he's reading like a kingfisher's beak over water. "This _is_ a real job, asshole," he says, his lips pursed disapprovingly. "Where've you been for the last seventeen years, on vacation? The hours are insane, the work's hard, the pay's lousy and no one ever says thank you. What part of that doesn't say 'job' to you?"

 

"You know what I mean," says Gerard, rolling his eyes. "Nine to five, cubicles, all that bullshit."

 

Mikey shrugs, returning his attention to the newspaper. "I don't know. Boring, I guess, but at least you'd get a pension. And dental."

 

Gerard chuckles, and goes back to scanning his own paper. He's heard of hunters who've gone legit, charging people for ridding their homes of supernatural menaces, but most of them still do it the old fashioned (i.e. less legal) way. It's worked well enough for him and Mikey, anyway. He concedes that Mikey has a point, but then, most hunters don't need pensions. Most hunters don't live long enough.

 

Their search for strange deaths and bizarre accident bears no fruit - "Just the usual murders, beatings and drunk morons," Mikey says - so they get back in the car and drive the two and a half hours to Mocksville. Even Gerard doesn't want to drive through the night again, so they find a motel and get a room for the night. No matter how much a man may love his car, a man is not seventeen anymore and a man's back can only take so many consecutive hours in an upright seat.

 

After a greasy diner breakfast the next morning, they set off again for Nashville. They drive with the windows down, a fresh summer breeze ruffling their hair, the sun blazing in the sky, Queen and Zeppelin playing through the stereo. Despite everything, Gerard is in a rare good mood. They have a plan, they have miles of highway behind them and miles more ahead, they have the most beautiful car in all the world, they have each other, they have rock and roll. It could be a whole lot worse.

 

"You're smiling," Mikey says, suspiciously. Gerard is driving, while Mikey is sitting in the passenger seat and methodically eating his way through a bag of gummy worms he bought at the gas station in Mocksville that morning. "What's wrong with you?"

 

Gerard shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "Just reminds me of how it used to be, you know? Before everything got... messy."

 

"Tell me about it," says Mikey, biting the head off another gummy worm. He says nothing for a long moment, bobbing his head gently in time with Don't Stop Me Now. "Maybe one day it'll be like that again."

 

"You think so?" Gerard looks over at him, genuinely curious. Mikey's instincts for these things are generally good, and very much worth listening to.

 

"Not really, no. Just good to have something to hope for, I guess."

 

 

*

 

 

In some dusty roadhouse on the outskirts of Nashville, they meet Adam and his crows, laughing and jubilant as they celebrate the end of a hunt. Adam jumps up, his chair scraping the bare floorboards, shaking Mikey's hand and slapping Gerard on the back. A chorus of greetings rises from the others, and Sarah shoots Mikey a sidelong smile. At the crows' insistence, Gerard and Mikey pull up chairs and join them.

 

"Drinks are on me, boys," Adam says, already heading for the bar. "Make yourselves comfortable."

 

Gerard settles deeper into his seat, enjoying a precious moment of contentment. Mikey is safe, they're surrounded by friends, and someone else is buying. Times like this are few and far between, and he's learnt to savor them. He likes Adam. Adam is one of the best hunters Gerard has met, and his knowledge of folklore and legend is encyclopaedic. He looks the same as ever, his voice is the color of old leathers and Kentucky bourbon and his eyes wells of darkness in his face. He returns to the table a minute later, and slams two glasses down in front of Gerard and Mikey, who is now deep in conversation with Sarah.

 

"Thanks," Gerard says sincerely, raising his glass to Adam and drinking deeply. The whiskey warms him through, honey and firefly-light radiating through his veins.

 

Adam acknowledges his thanks with a nod, picking up his own drink and swilling it lazily around until it threatens to spill over the lip of the glass. "So what brings you this far west, Jersey boy?"

 

Gerard gives him a long look, one eyebrow raised. "Adam, I'm not a moron and neither are you. You know exactly what we're doing here."

 

Adam laughs. "Okay," he says. "Sorry. Seriously, though. You think there's really something going on?"

 

Gerard hesitates, staring intently into his glass and running his fingertip idly around the rim. "Yeah," he says, eventually. "Yeah, I think there is. Ray - you know, Toro? - he thinks so too, he's been hearing stuff for weeks. We went to see the Prophet, even he thinks there's something up."

 

Adam lets out a snort of laughter. "Seriously? _You_ went to see Gabe? Voluntarily? Were you tied up in the trunk of someone's car or something?"

 

"It was _important_ ," says Gerard loftily, attempting the look of flinty-eyed disdain that Mikey somehow inherited from a mother who wasn't even his by blood. "Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and do the right thing. Also Mikey made me go," he adds, glaring down at the table as if he's trying to leave scorch marks with the power of his mind alone.

 

"Ahh. Now, that sounds more like it," Adam says, grinning and leaning back in his chair. "So what did Gabe have to say for himself?"

 

Gerard rolls his eyes. "Some bullshit about the big bad wolf or something. Not exactly helpful, but he did tell us to head down to New Orleans."

 

Adam frowns slightly. "Really? I haven't heard about anything at all happening there. You?"

 

"Jack shit. I'm not totally convinced he's not just doing it for laughs, but..." he shrugs. "It's about all we've got to go on right now. Thought we might as well check it out. "

 

 

*

 

 

As usual, Gerard gets carried away by the booze and the music and the heady laughter in the air, and he wakes up late the next morning with a stinking hangover.

 

"Thank god, sleeping beauty," Mikey grumbles. He's already dressed, boots on, studying a vast map.

 

"What time is it?" croaks Gerard, shielding his eyes from the death rays of sunlight streaming in. His mouth tastes like a fucking graveyard and his head feels like someone is hammering a stake into it.

 

"Too fucking late," says Mikey, folding his map. "We got six hours to drive today, I wanna get to Carthage by tonight. Get up."

 

Gerard slowly pushes the covers away, trying to move his head as little as possible in order to stop the sharpened stake going any deeper into his brain. His soft, squishy brain, which is about to run out of his ears. "Where the fuck is Carthage?"

 

"Near Philly."

 

"Then why aren't we just going through Philly?"

 

"Motels'll be cheaper in Carthage. We'll get there this evening, get a room... find a bar, get you some hair of the dog or something."

 

Gerard grunts. He can't argue with that. "Okay. Gimme ten minutes."

 

He rolls out of bed, yawns so widely his jaw clicks and staggers into the bathroom, cursing the sun and covering his eyes with his hands.

 

 

*

 

 

They make good progress once they're out on the I-40, eating up the miles to Carthage. Mikey drives the first few hours, then Gerard takes over when they hit Mississippi. It's another scorching day, a faint heat haze shimmering over the asphalt and the car's interior as hot as an oven. Mikey fans himself lazily with a map and fucks around with the air conditioning, trying to coax it into producing more than the occasional puff of cool air, without success. It's a Led Zeppelin kind of day, Gerard feels, rolling the window down and cranking up the volume as the slow, sexy bass slide of Dazed And Confused begins to pour out of the stereo. The wind whips at his hair, and he hits the gas.

 

By the time they reach Carthage, the heat of the day is dimming. It's not a big place, so they pick the motel that looks the least flea-ridden and the bar that looks the least expensive, and the evening slides by surprisingly easily. Gerard sleeps deeply, plagued once again by the same old vampire nightmare, and when he wakes briefly in the middle of the night with its teeth at his throat, he sees Mikey lying with his hands laced behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.

 

Mikey wakes him up again at some ungodly hour of the morning by poking him hard in the ribs and whipping the covers away from him.

 

"Up," he says. "Rise and shine, asshole, we're going to Louisiana."

 

Gerard groans, curling up into the fetal position, hoping Mikey isn't going to start poking him again. Or, god forbid, tickling.

 

"I hate you," he says, his voice muffled by the thin pillow.

 

"I brought you coffee."

 

He sits up. "But," he says archly, "I am prepared to reconsider."

 

Mikey looks over Ray's maps one last time as Gerard inhales his coffee and pulls his boots on, and they hit the road again.

 

 

*

 

 

They finally cross the state line just as the sun is setting, roaring into Louisiana with a screech of tires on asphalt.

 

Mikey, who's been riding shotgun since they stopped for lunch, shoots Gerard a sidelong smile. "Hey," he says. "Are we there yet?"

 

Gerard snorts. "How old are you again?"

 

Mikey sticks his tongue out. He's been quiet today, even by his own standards, just sitting in the passenger seat and picking the music, staring unseeingly through the windshield with his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed in concentration.

 

"You're chatty today," Gerard remarks. Not judging, just stating a fact.

 

"Listening," says Mikey. "Well, not... you know what I mean. Just seeing if I could pick up on anything around here."

 

"Oh?" Gerard looks over at him, raising an eyebrow. "You heard anything?"

 

Mikey makes a noise that might be a sigh, or might be a half-hearted huff of laughter. "Not a single goddamn thing. I don't know whether that's a good sign or not."

 

They drive on towards Baton Rouge, then, once they reach the city's outskirts, stop to pay a visit to a favorite haunt. The Black Dog is a shitty dive bar that caters mainly to hunters, where the beer is cheap and the bar fights usually end with somebody being stretchered to the nearest emergency room. In theory, the purpose of their stop is to see if there's any interesting gossip to pick up. In practice, it's more because Gerard is getting to the stage where he'd quite happily kill a man for a drink. Mikey knows this, of course, but he keeps the ribbing to a minimum, for which Gerard is grateful.

 

They leave the car and head inside, the honeyed evening sunlight kissing their faces briefly as they cross the scrubby parking lot. Gerard makes a beeline for the barmaid, a redheaded girl with a deeply disinterested expression and liberal scattering of facial piercings, while Mikey dawdles behind and looks for friendly faces.

 

"Beer, please," Gerard says, with the most winning smile he can muster. She slouches off to get a bottle from the fridge, and he slaps a handful of coins down on the bar. Mikey slides in next to him, and Gerard looks over at him with a raised eyebrow. "Anyone we know?" he asks.

 

Mikey shrugs. "No one we know _well_ ," he says. Gerard knows he can't complain; he tries to keep the number of hunters they associate with on a regular basis to a minimum. It's just safer that way - for Mikey, at least.

 

"Well, we're here now," Gerard says, taking a long draught of his beer and smacking his lips appreciatively. "Might as well stay for a drink."

 

Mikey rolls his eyes, smirking, and leans forward to catch the surly barmaid's eye. Gerard feels a tap on his shoulder, and looks around to see a short, dark-haired guy with a startlingly pretty face. His skin is crawling with ink - on his neck, his hands, up his arms and down under his shirt - and he's smiling like he's in on some kind of joke. He looks vaguely familiar to Gerard, but then so do lots of people. It's a side effect of life as a hunter. Eventually there are just too many faces to remember and they all start to run together.

 

"I'm sorry," Gerard says, with an apologetic smile. "Do I know you?"

 

The guy's smile widens, becoming more obnoxious but somehow no less attractive. Gerard feels a profound urge to wipe that stupid look off his face.

 

"We've met," says the maybe-stranger. He smells like beer, and something else, something Gerard can't quite place. "Although, uh..." he looks Gerard up and down, his eyes slightly unfocused but glittering with amusement. "I gotta say, I'm kind of hurt that you don't remember." His expression becomes even more self-satisfied, positively radiating smugness, and suddenly it all falls into place. Gerard has seen that face before, and he wanted to wipe the smile off it that time too. In fact, he's reasonably certain that about ten seconds after having this thought, he dragged the guy - _this_ guy, in fact - into the bathroom of a dive just like this one, and proceeded to drop his knees to suck him off.

 

 

"Ithaca," says Gerard sweetly. Internally, he curses every god in the known universe for wreaking this excruciating coincidence upon him. This is why he tries so hard to fuck only people he's almost certain he's never going to see again, and why he _never_ fucks other hunters. Not since Bert, anyway. It's so much more straightforward this way, it means there are no awkward conversations about going out for a drink some other time. This system hasn't failed him once (apart from today, obviously). His one night stands aren't supposed to show up again, that's the whole point. What are the odds on this guy, this ordinary guy - this _civilian_ \- reappearing now, and in a hunter bar, of all places? Karma might be a bitch, but Gerard would take karma over coincidence any day. At least karma is predictable.

 

There's nothing for it, so Gerard resorts to his favorite tactic: brazening it out. "New York State. I remember. I'm Gerard."

 

"Frank. Nice to meet you again, Gerard."

 

Something about the way he rolls Gerard's name around in his mouth is, for some reason, kind of annoying. Gerard doesn't quite manage to stop the frown he feels flit across his face for a moment. "You too," he says, but he doesn't mean it. How the hell is he supposed to shake this guy off while simultaneously letting him down gently? Next to him, he can feel rather than hear Mikey snickering to himself.

 

"Well, _Gerard_ ," Frank drawls, leaning in towards him as his grin broadens. "I was just gonna head out back for a smoke. Care to join me?"

 

Gerard groans inwardly. This is precisely what he was afraid of. Well, at least this way he doesn't have to be the one to broach the subject. "Oh, man," he says, "Look, I'm... flattered, okay? But I'm, uh, really not looking for anything right now, you know?"

 

Frank snorts, a definite sheen of mockery glistening on his face under the dim lights. "Calm down, man," he says. "I wasn't asking you to wear my ring to prom, I was just offering you a smoke. See you round, Gerard."

 

And he turns around and saunters off, still smirking like nobody's business. Gerard can't help but feel relieved, but he also can't help checking out Frank's ass as he walks away. Damn. If only all Gerard's drunken hookups were so attractive. His drunk self doesn't always have such good taste.

 

"Shut up," he says, with as much dignity as he can muster. Mikey is now sniggering unabashedly into his beer. "Just because you don't like sex--"

 

"It's gross," says Mikey flatly. "And messy. What's the point?"

 

Gerard ignores him. "--Doesn't mean it isn't a perfectly natural, healthy adult... thing," he finishes haughtily.

 

"Gross," repeats Mikey, with feeling. "You want another drink?"

 

Gerard grins.

 

The bar is warm and the air is thick with music from the jukebox in the corner, and before long Gerard finds himself pressing through the crush of warm bodies towards the back door. By now, Mikey is deep in conversation about Star Wars with the barmaid, and Gerard figures that he won't be missed for a while. He needs some air and a cigarette.

 

By contrast, the bar's back yard is almost empty, and Gerard leans back against the rough brick wall, the cool night air kissing his cheeks. Overhead, the sky is a deep, inky blue, peppered with stars. He lights a cigarette, exhaling pale smoke into the dark. He feels good, warm and comfortably buzzed.

 

"We just have to stop meeting like this," says a voice from the doorway, and Gerard turns to see Frank. He looks flushed and tousled, his voice ever so slightly slurred. The loose-limbed way he moves is strangely hypnotic. Gerard chuckles.

 

"Just can't seem to shake you off, can I?" he says.

 

"Nope. You got a light?"

 

"Mm? Oh. Yeah, sure."

 

Frank leans towards Gerard, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a smoke held loosely between his fingers, and Gerard reaches back into his pocket for his Zippo. 

 

His eyes drop down to the ink on Frank's lean, lightly muscled forearms. There's a lot to look at, blood and monsters and--

 

Gerard freezes as one of Frank's tattoos suddenly shifts into focus with a noise like the cocking of a gun. A rough black ring, bisected by an angry diagonal slash. Gerard's breath congeals in his lungs and his heartbeat begins to pound in his ears like war drums.

 

Frank frowns. "Gerard. Hey. What's up?"

 

Gerard's hand shoots out, his fingers locking around Frank's wrist. Frank starts back instinctively, but Gerard is too quick and his grip is vice-like. He looks disbelievingly into Frank's face.

 

"You ran with _Leathermouth?_ " he breathes. Everyone knows what happened to Leathermouth, they were an ugly cautionary tale for hunters everywhere. Leathermouth burned everything they touched. Everyone knows that. Even now, there are all kinds of rumors circling Leathermouth's existence like vultures. It's whispered - always whispered, never spoken aloud - that Leathermouth were something else. A new breed of hunter, who didn't just kill. Hunters who _hurt_ , cruel and warped.

 

To his credit, Frank's only sign of surprise at Gerard's reaction to the symbol is a short, sharp intake of breath. "Yeah," he says, curtly, his eyes dark. He pulls his arm away. "I did."

 

It couldn't be more obvious that the last thing he wants to do is talk about it, but Gerard doesn't care. "But I thought... we all thought there were no survivors."

 

"Well, you all thought wrong, didn't you?" Frank snaps, yanking his sleeve down to cover the tattoo. He's scowling now, his brows drawn together and his mouth pressed into a thin, angry line. "Yeah, I ran with Leathermouth. Leathermouth was my fucking crew. And I got them all killed. Every single one of them, except me. You happy now?"

 

Gerard is reeling. Frank. A hunter. Of _course_ he is.Not just a hunter, either, but the kingpin of the most dangerous crew in America. He thinks about the time he's spent in Frank's company and his life flashes before his eyes. He could have died. He probably should have died ten times over by now. Leathermouth's reputation preceded them - touch them with so much as a fingertip, and sooner or later, you'd wind up dead. If Gerard hadn't been so fucking wasted the first time he'd set eyes on Frank in that stupid fucking dive, he would have spotted that tattoo and run for his life. Shit, shit, _shit_.

 

"I'm sorry," Gerard eventually manages to choke out. "Losing your crew like that, shit. I can't imagine..." he trails off as he imagines trying to carry on without Mikey at his back, and shakes his head. Frank's eyes are hard, and, not for the first time, Gerard wishes he'd just kept his big goddamn mouth shut.

 

"Don't be," Frank says, turning away and lighting another smoke. "It was my fault."

 

Gerard knows he's being dismissed, but he can't bring himself to leave. He's fascinated and horrified in equal measure. Leathermouth ended badly, sure, but they were legendary. They did what they did, and until it all went wrong, they were good. They were the best.

 

"I guess you're heading down to New Orleans too, huh?" he says, trying not to stare at the burns on Frank's arms. Suddenly, they make a lot more sense.

 

Frank shrugs, still not looking at Gerard. "Yeah. Guess so."

 

Gerard is more than a little thrown by Frank's oddly laissez-faire attitude. This is a pretty big deal, he doesn't understand how Frank can act like it's the prospect of a night at the bar or a football game on TV.

 

"Me and my brother are driving down," he says, without knowing quite what makes him do it. "We could give you a ride."

 

Gerard thinks it's safe to assume that Frank isn't running with a crew right now. They've been out here for a while, someone would have come to check on him. He regrets offering as soon as the words are out of his mouth - what would Mikey say? - but Frank is already looking him up and down with ill-disguised contempt.

 

"No thanks," he says, coldly. "I don't need your fucking charity." And with that, he grinds his half-smoked cigarette under his heel, turns, and stalks back inside. Gerard slumps back against the rough brick wall, his heart thumping like he's just had a near-death experience. Christ. He's immensely relieved just to be breathing after that, next to which Frank's refusal of his offer seems like small potatoes.

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard thinks about Frank as they get up the next morning and head for the highway once more. The whole experience has acquired a slightly surreal cast, as if it was just one of those dreams that splices familiar things together until they're unrecognizable. He's not sure it even happened. He wonders whether or not he should tell Mikey. Maybe not, he'd only get all smug and self-righteous and give Gerard the spiel about how terrible he is at picking out random strangers to fuck. He's driving this morning, the sun high and bright in a cloud-marbled sky, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols playing as they drive on towards New Orleans.

 

"So," he says, finally resolving to broach the subject with Mikey after all. "That guy last night--"

 

"Don't," Mikey interrupts, groaning and covering his ears with his hands. "I couldn't give less of a fuck about your life choices, so long as I don't have to hear about them afterwards."

 

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Michael," Gerard says, in his very best imitation of their mother's voice. "Nothing happened, Jesus. But, uh. Guess who he turned out to be."

 

"I have no idea," Mikey intones, rolling his eyes heavenwards and settling deeper into his seat. He takes another bite of the enormous doughnut he insisted was a perfectly acceptable breakfast. "But I'm sure you're about to tell me."

 

Gerard tells him.

 

Mikey chokes on his doughnut.

 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he splutters. "Leathermouth? Seriously? I mean, even by your standards, what the shit."

 

Gerard tunes out as Mikey rants on for several minutes, about Gerard's standards and god knows what else.

 

"I mean," says Mikey, eventually, once he's recovered from the shock. "Jesus, I wouldn't have known. He just seemed like... I don't know, any other scruffy punk."

 

"Right?" Gerard slaps the steering wheel in agreement. "He wasn't exactly giving me the usual 'hey, I'm a violent psychopath' signs or anything."

 

Mikey shakes his head in disbelief. "Sounds like you had a lucky escape, wow."

 

"Yeah," Gerard agrees, omitting to mention that he invited Frank to join them on their little road trip. Mikey's nerves have been tested severely enough already this morning.

 

They slow down once they reach the outskirts of New Orleans, so that Mikey can read out the instructions Ray scribbled on a piece of paper and stapled to one of the maps. Gerard is half-expecting Mikey to announce that they're there at any moment, or else that they've missed an important turning and need to go back (it wouldn't be the first time, Mikey's abilities as a navigator being what they are), but he doesn't. Ray's directions lead them straight through the city, down Bourbon street, buzzing with life and laughter, and back out into the eastern outskirts of New Orleans.

 

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Gerard says doubtfully, casting a sidelong glance at Mikey, who's squinting at Ray's map, tracing the marked route with a finger. They're well and truly out of the city now, and getting deeper and deeper into what looks - to Gerard, at least - like an impenetrable, featureless swamp.

 

"Yes," Mikey replies, a distinct snap in his voice. "We're definitely on the right track, I'm sure. Just... keep going until I say, alright?"

 

Gerard doesn't say anything, just keeps driving as the swamp opens wide and engulfs them. They drive on for what feels like hours, Mikey giving occasional instructions as Gerard negotiates the increasingly narrow road.

 

"Here," Mikey says suddenly. "Take a left."

 

Gerard slams his foot down on the brake. " _Here?_ " he says, exasperated. "Mikey, there's nothing--"

 

"There is," Mikey insists. "Look, right there. C'mon."

 

Sure enough, there's a narrow, overgrown track that branches off the uneven road, almost hidden by the profusion of trees.

 

"Huh," Gerard mutters, turning the wheel and uttering a silent prayer for the car's paintwork. The Trans Am is his pride and joy. "What do you know." They make their way slowly and cautiously along it, fallen branches cracking under the wheels and leaves brushing against the windows. Gerard can't quite shake the uneasy feeling that they're about to plunge into some hidden pool of water and swamp mud that'll suck them in and close over them again, not leaving a trace of evidence that they were ever there.

 

They round a sharp bend in the path, the tires spinning in the mud, and, suddenly, a run-down old clapboard house looms out of the gloom. There are a couple of nondescript cars parked out front, which look as if they've been there for years.

 

"This is it," Mikey says. "Let's go."

 

Gerard pulls up and kills the engine, and they both climb out.

 

"This is the place?" Gerard says, glancing around. "You're sure? Looks kind of sketchy."

 

Mikey shrugs but doesn't stop, his boots crunching through the dirt and the heaps of rotting leaf muck. "Yeah."

 

Gerard lets out a huff of irritation, but follows him anyway. He also doesn't take his hand off the butt of his gun, the heft of it reassuringly solid at his hip. Mikey ambles up the rickety front steps, his fingertips skimming lightly over the rotting handrail. Gerard advances in his wake, looking back over his shoulder once or twice.  He doesn't like this at all. From a strategic point of view, it's a goddamn train wreck.

 

Mikey tries the front door, and, to Gerard's surprise, it swings open noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. The room beyond is a bar, surprisingly spacious, sunlit, the air heavy with the scents of tobacco, gunmetal, beer, soap. Pinned to the wall behind the bar itself with a large hunting knife, a tattered sheet of paper reads,  _HOUSE RULES: 1. NO BRAWLING. 2. NO MURDER. 3. ABSOLUTELY NO OCCULT RITUALS TO BE PERFORMED INDOORS AFTER 6PM. 4. NO SMOKING_. Behind the bar, a woman with short, untidy dark hair looks up at the two of them and groans.

 

They both stop short.

 

"Charming," Gerard mutters.

 

"Emilie!" calls the mystery woman, putting down the glass she was cleaning. "You were right, you asshole, they're here. I owe you ten bucks."

 

"Ha! Never bet against a psychic," another voice trills, apparently from the bar's back room.

 

"Hi," Gerard says, approaching the bar. "Gerard Way, this is Mikey--"

 

"Oh, we know," says the woman behind the bar. Her expression is a mixture of amusement and exasperation, and Gerard experiences a brief and not entirely pleasant moment of déjà vu. "Amanda. Welcome to Maman Brigitte's. You're here to see Emilie."

 

"I'm sure you're right," Gerard says wearily, "But why is that, exactly?"

 

"Because she knew you were coming," says Amanda simply. "Emilie's the most powerful Medium in the country. She says you're here to see her, chances are she's right."

 

"Thanks," Mikey says hastily, pre-empting the queue of snide comebacks on the tip of Gerard's tongue. "Can we just, uh...?"

 

"She's in the back room. Go right on through. Oh, and give her this for me." Amanda presses a crumpled ten dollar bill into Gerard's hand and jerks her head towards the half-open door behind her. Gerard and Mikey exchange glances. Mikey shrugs, almost imperceptibly - _why the hell not_ \- and they go through. The back room is small and cramped and dusty, piled high with boxes. In the middle of the room is a large crate with a patterned shawl thrown over it like a tablecloth, upon which sit a scattered deck of cards and a teacup, half full.

 

And behind the crate, toying idly with a violin, is Emilie.

 

The most powerful Medium in the country is not what Gerard was expecting. She's small and slight, pretty, the dappled sunlight streaming through the window turning her hair to molten gold as she leans back in her chair, her feet up on the crate serving as a table. She's wearing a pair of heavy combat boots and what appears to be some sort of vintage nightgown.

 

"Mr. Way and Mr. Way," she says, turning two very piercing blue eyes on the pair of them. Gerard feels uncomfortably exposed. "The pleasure's all yours." She smiles a distinctly feline smile that says, quite clearly, that here is someone it would be most unwise to cross.

 

She tips her chair forward, the front legs of her chair hitting the pockmarked wooden floor with a bang, and regally extends her hand to him. Gerard knows better than to shake hands with a Medium, so, instead, he takes hers and kisses it gallantly before putting the ten dollar bill Amanda gave him down in front of Emilie. Mikey follows suit, and she chuckles. Her voice is surprisingly low, her smile suddenly playful.

 

"Well, aren't you two a fine pair of gentlemen," she says, and Gerard drops a little mock bow.

 

"We aim to please, ma'am," says Mikey, and she throws her head back and laughs.

 

"You two can stay," she says. "Fine. Pull up a chair, both of you."

 

The only chair in the room is Emilie's, so Mikey grabs a small crate off one of the piles cluttering the room, and Gerard follows his lead. The silence blossoms and she doesn't break it by speaking, instead raking over them both with a searching gaze that does nothing to assuage Gerard's unpleasant feeling that she's mentally dismantling him.

 

"So," she says, eventually. Her voice has lost its playful, teasing tone. "You went to see the Prophet and he sent you to me. Just like pass the parcel, huh?"

 

"Yes, ma'am," Mikey says, hitting her with his most disarming smile.

 

"Oh, you can drop the act," she drawls, rolling her eyes. "Turning on the charm might work on Gabe, boy, but I'll thank you not to try it with me."

 

"Sorry," says Mikey contritely. "But we just wanna know if there's anything you can tell us that might help us get to the bottom of what's going on right now. Gabe said you might be able to help and Amanda says you're the best Medium in the country. I think you might be the best chance we've got."

 

She snorts, but her expression softens. "Well, it's true that you're fucked without me," she concedes. "Okay. Here it is." She swings her boots down off the table and leans in towards them both, her gaze boring into them. Gerard thinks fleetingly of bugs stretched out and pinned to white cardboard in collector's cases. "Something," she says gravely, "is coming. Something so big and so bad that it hasn't even been born yet and it's already making ripples. That's all this is, all the weird shit that's been happening lately. It's trying to force its way through and into this world. Every fucked up thing that's happened so far? The disappearances? The _deaths?_ " She shakes her head, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. "That's just the doorknob rattling. We ain't seen nothing yet."

 

Gerard sits back, letting out a long breath he didn't realize he was holding. There was, he realizes, still some tiny, insanely optimistic part of him that was hoping that Gabe was just fucking with them, that Emilie would laugh and call bullshit on this whole mess. Apparently not. There is a disturbing amount of congruence between the Prophet's warning and the Medium's diagnosis, and Gerard doesn't like that one bit. He exchanges looks with Mikey, who, judging by his face, is thinking along similar lines.

 

"Okay," Gerard says, once he's wrangled his runaway thoughts into some semblance of order. "Can you tell us what it is?"

 

She shrugs helplessly. "Sorry," she says. "I don't know. I've been listening for weeks, trying to get a clear fix on it. But it's nothing I've ever seen before, that's for damn sure. What I can tell you is that when it does come through--" when, Gerard notes, as his heart sinks, not if, "--it'll be somewhere nearby. You've both been hearing the stories, have you heard about one single thing that's happened in Louisiana?"

 

Gerard shakes his head, and when he glances over at Mikey, he sees that Mikey is doing the same.

 

"Of course you haven't," she says grimly. "We're in the eye of the storm here. This is the place to be right now. The closer I am to the source of all this weirdness, the sooner I can figure out what its deal is."

 

Gerard lets out a low whistle. "Brave," he says.

 

She shoots him a smile sharp enough to cut out a man's eyes. "You have no idea," she says. "You'll be sticking around, right? We're gonna need all the hunters we can get."

 

"Oh," says Mikey, sounding just as wrongfooted as Gerard feels. He can't think of anything less appealing than the thought of being holed up here with a bunch of other hunters, any one of whom could stumble on Mikey's secret. "I don't know if we..."

 

"Good," she says crisply, turning that dangerous smile on Mikey. "I knew you'd--"

 

But then the door flies open with a loud bang to reveal a panting, scared-looking man, wild-eyed behind his glasses.

 

"Emilie," he says urgently, "You need to come up right now, he's dreaming again and it's like the room's underwater, _please_."

 

She jumps to her feet, her face draining of all color as suddenly as if someone had pulled the plug on her. "Coming," she says, tersely, apparently having forgotten all about Gerard and Mikey. "Let's go."

 

She hurries after the man, their frantic footsteps loud in the soft quiet of the afternoon.

 

"Do we go after them?" Mikey mutters, craning his neck to try to see where Emilie and the strange man are going.

 

Gerard deliberates for almost a whole second. "Yeah," he says. "Come on."

 

They follow Emilie out through the bar and up a narrow, rickety staircase. Gerard can hear the strange, worried guy talking rapidly to Emilie, but he can't make out the actual words. Emilie half-runs down a hallway lined with doors, right down to the end where the man stands back to allow her to push a final door open. She slips inside without a moment's hesitation, the guy trailing in her wake. Gerard steels himself, glances over his shoulder at Mikey, and goes through.

 

His first thought is that the man in the glasses wasn't wrong; the room really does look like it's underwater. It's as if the air is boiling, seething and rippling and throwing grotesque shadows on the wall. The room looks something like a motel bedroom, with a bed and a nightstand and a cheap little closet, and writhing in the sheets is a heavily tattooed, dark-haired boy. For a split second, Gerard thinks, _Frank_ , and his stomach turns, but it's okay, it isn't him. The bedstead is rattling noisily against the plaster wall, and, barely audible over the racket, is the horrible, unearthly sound of a thousand tongues whispering in some ancient, alien language.

 

Gerard's gut is screaming at him to run, but Emilie seems to have no such qualms. She steps up to the bed and drops down to a crouch, reaching out with both hands and places one on each side of the dreaming man's face. Gerard expects her to speak to him or shake him, anything to try to wake him up, but she doesn't. Instead, she looks down at him, her face a mask of silent, blazing intensity.

 

"Emilie, it's not working," says the guy with the glasses desperately, wringing his hands. "We need to wake him--"

 

"Shhh," she hisses, not looking away from the man in the bed. "I wouldn't be doing him any favors, Patrick, he needs to learn how to master this on his own."

 

Patrick falls silent, his mouth twisted with worry and fear.

 

"Okay," Emilie says, her voice low but indisputably commanding. "Pete, I know you can hear me. You're a light bulb, yes? All this power flowing through you and burning you up. Now, find the switch. Can you do that for me?" Pete doesn't give any indication that he can hear a word she's saying, but she seems satisfied that he's with her. "Okay. Pete, I want you to reach out and put your finger on the switch. Can you do that for me?"

 

The air roils furiously - storm in a teacup, thinks Gerard wildly, as the glass in the window rattles - and the bed shakes harder than ever, knocking a chunk of plaster out of the pitted wall. The terrible, inhuman whispering is louder than ever, the indistinct murmuring resolving into something rhythmic and primal that strikes a sick, irrational fear into Gerard's very bones. Mikey's eyes are huge, as deep and dark as winter, as if the otherness here is calling out to the otherness in him.

 

Emilie barely even flinches. "Pete," she says firmly, "Turn the light off. Just turn it off."

 

There's an agonizing, suspended moment of stillness, of hesitation, as if two momentous forces are perfectly balanced, just for a second.

 

And then, slowly, Pete stills, the air in the room quiets and the furniture stops rattling.

 

"Good," Emilie croons, like a mother trying to soothe a crying baby. "That's really good, Pete, well done. Sleep now, you need your rest." She stands, looking drained, and turns to face Patrick. "He'll be okay," she says. "He should sleep for a while, that took a lot out of him."

 

Patrick nods, slumping against the wall now the immediate danger seems to have passed. "Alright," he says wearily, rubbing his eyes. Gerard might be seeing things, but he's almost sure they were wet with unshed tears. "Thanks, Emilie. I'll... I'm gonna stay with him for a while, just make sure he's doing okay."

 

"Sure," she says, and pats him gently on the shoulder before turning to leave, Gerard and Mikey hot on her heels.

 

"What the hell was that?" Gerard demands in an undertone, as soon as they're out in the hallway again and the door has clicked shut behind them.

 

"That was Pete," says Emilie, sadly. "Poor boy. He's a Medium, really, but he's burdened with these abilities that are just too big for him. I've been trying to teach him how to control it, but..."

 

"But what?" asks Mikey, when it becomes clear that she isn't going to finish that intriguing sentence.

 

"But I think it's too late," she says bluntly, leading the two of them back down the stairs. "If he'd been brought to me five years ago I might have been able to help, but he's spent most of his life self-medicating with whatever he could get his hands on, just trying to block it out. I'm doing what I can, but he's a wreck."

 

"Shit," says Mikey quietly. "That's... wow. I'm sorry."

 

"And Patrick?" Gerard asks, curious. He was watching Patrick, trying to work out the nature of his entanglement with Pete could be. They certainly didn't look related.

 

"Patrick," says Emilie, with the air of one choosing their words carefully, "Is the only person who can get through to Pete. You saw him up there, that was nothing. Sometimes it's like his feet aren't even in this world anymore, but Patrick's always been able to bring him back." Unspoken but as plainly visible as the golden dust in the air is the implication that there might come a day when even Patrick won't be enough.

 

Lost for words, Gerard follows Emilie as she pushes open the door to the back room, and all three of them return to their seats atop their respective crates. There's a brief, grim silence, during which Emilie looks unhappy, Mikey  thoughtful.

 

"I know that look," Gerard says, shooting a sidelong look at Mikey. "What are you thinking?"

 

Mikey glances up at Gerard, the corner his mouth twitching in a faint smile, and Gerard has no trouble at all recognizing his brother's I-have-a-hunch face. "I was wondering," Mikey says slowly, "If what's happening to Pete is connected to this... this thing that's coming. You said it was like he was in some other world, right? Maybe that's where he's been going. I mean, has he gotten worse lately? Ripples, shockwaves, whatever, maybe he's just more sensitive to them. Like a radio tuned into that one station."

 

"Oh, I'd bet on it," says Emilie seriously. "Clever boy. Pete is... psychically hypersensitive. This thing, whatever it is, is causing some pretty serious disturbances on that wavelength. Pete's picking up way more than he can handle because no one ever taught him how to control what he can do. Imagine a tiny little rowing boat in a huge storm, way out at sea."

 

"Okay," Gerard says, trying to wrap his head around this flood of information. "But can't we... I don't know, learn from what he's seeing? There might be something useful there. Something that might give us the key to whatever the hell's going on."

 

"If only." Emilie picks up the half-empty teacup still sitting silently on the large crate between them and swirls its contents around absent-mindedly, gazing down into it as if expecting to find answers there. "No, Pete can't make sense of anything he's picking up. There's just too much, it overloads his brain every time it happens. Like powering a night light with a nuclear reactor."

 

"Oh," Gerard says, struck dumb by the mental image. Jesus Christ, the poor guy. Gerard isn't surprised he's spent his whole life trying to drown this shit out; Gerard would have done exactly the same thing in his shoes. Hell, Gerard _has_. He's no stranger to self-medication either, although he'd like to think that he's in a slightly better state than Pete.

 

"I mean, I'd be trying to teach him how not to take in more than he can handle at one time, but right now I'm still trying to teach him how not to let it kill him," she says wearily.

 

"But if  you listened in on Pete while Pete was listening in on it," says Mikey shrewdly, "Then what would happen?"

 

She snorts. "And stick my face in the goddamn reactor? I don't think so." She sighs, and gets to her feet. "Come on. I need a drink."

 

She leads the two of them back out into the bar and takes a seat on one of the bar stools, gesturing idly for Gerard and Mikey to do the same.

 

"Was it bad?" Amanda says, quietly, pouring out two generous shots of whiskey for Mikey and Gerard and adding hot water to a teacup for Emilie. "Pete, I mean. How's he doing?"

 

"Bad," says Emilie bleakly, as Amanda spikes her tea with rum and pushes it towards her. She picks up the cup, blows on its surface for a moment and takes a sip. "Worse and worse every fucking day. I mean, I'd want to help him just for Patrick's sake, but I just don't know if I can."

 

Amanda makes a sympathetic face and gives Emilie's hand a reassuring squeeze. Emilie manages a wan, pale smile.

 

"So, uh," Gerard says, casting around for a change of subject. "Ray Toro told us where to find this place, he says it's been going for a while. How'd you wind up running it?"

 

Emilie grins. It's a thoroughly unnerving sight. "I could tell you," she says, "But then I'd have to kill you. It's a long story that incriminates a lot of people, that's all I'm saying. We took over... six years ago, now?"

 

"Something like that. We've quite a few realtors try to buy us out," Amanda says, polishing a glass idly. "There were two of them here last week. They were offering good money, too."

 

"Yeah? What did you tell them?" Mikey asks, looking up from cleaning his gun with the ghost of a smile on his face.

 

"I poisoned one and Amanda shot the other one between the eyes from forty paces away," Emilie says, basking languidly in the sun like a contented cat.

 

"Man, Janelle was so pissed about that," Amanda says, reminiscently, suddenly coming over misty-eyed. "Remember, Em?"

 

Emilie giggles. "Girls, you can- _not_ keep _doing_ this," she says, apparently imitating this Janelle, whoever she might be. "Now I gotta make them both disappear. You know how long that's gonna take me? I was gonna have a snack."

 

Amanda hoots with laughter, slapping one hand down on the bar. "Anyway," she says after a minute, once she's recovered the power of speech. "We can't let them knock this place down, they'd just build a big-ass mall or something."

 

"Yeah," Emilie says, mock-indignantly, sitting up a little straighter. "I mean, we're pretty much a wildlife sanctuary. Where's our state funding, that's what I wanna know."

 

"A wildlife sanctuary?" Gerard repeats, suspiciously. He isn't sure whether or not he and his fellow hunters are being made fun of. "What kind of wildlife?"

 

Amanda spares him a pitying look. "Oh, honey," she says, not unkindly. "There's more out there in those swamps than gators, you know."

 

"Who's Janelle?" says Mikey, moving the conversation into safer, less gator-infested waters.

 

"The electric lady, as we call her, is our resident hacker," Emilie says.

 

"You run a _bar_ ," Gerard says. "What the hell d'you need a resident hacker for?"

 

"A _bar?_ " Emilie repeats, wrinkling her nose. "It's not a _bar_. Anyway, who do you think makes sure no one notices how many realtors go missing around here? Who wipes hunters' criminal records, hmm? You should go and introduce yourselves. She lives upstairs, right up in the attic."

 

"Actually, make yourselves useful and take this with you." Amanda picks up a plate with a sandwich the size of a paving slab balanced precariously on it. Somewhat cautiously, Gerard takes it.

 

"She's busy," Emilie explains, in response to Gerard's raised eyebrow. "It's a full time job, keeping this place off the map. She's up those stairs, then go right, follow the hallway, then up some more stairs. You got that?"

 

"We'll manage," says Mikey, pushing his stool back from the bar and hopping down. Gerard follows him rather more clumsily, trying not to drop the plate. Mikey sniggers. Gerard ignores him, and makes his way carefully towards the stairs.

 

The two of them follow Emilie's directions through to the very heart of Maman Brigitte's, eventually finding themselves outside a door with a number of handwritten signs tacked to it. Gerard squints, trying to read them, then takes a step backwards, his eyebrows raised.

 

"That's reassuring," he mutters. All of the signs are variations on a similar theme, i.e. do not disturb on pain of _very painful_ death.

 

Mikey grunts in agreement, his own eyebrows similarly raised. But then he shrugs, and knocks smartly on the door.

 

"You got food?" calls a voice from inside. It could be preoccupied or just disinterested, Gerard isn't sure.

 

"Uh, yeah," Gerard calls back. "Can we come in?"

 

A brief pause, as if the owner of the voice is considering it. "Okay," it says magnanimously. "Come in."

 

Gerard's first impression is that it's a room full of computers, brand-new models nestled alongside veritable antiques. His second thought is that, no, it's a room full of _computer_. Everything seems to be plugged into something else, a sprawling cosmos of wires and screens and circuit boards and little blinking lights.

 

"Wow," he says. He doesn't know what any of this shit does, but it looks cool as hell.

 

A head appears from the midst of the miniature citadel of electronics, shortly followed by a pair of shoulders in a crisp white shirt. The head - a woman's, dark-skinned and startlingly pretty - grins.

 

"Gerard and Mikey Way," she says. "As I live and breathe."

 

"Uh... hi," Mikey says slowly. "Sorry, have we met?"

 

She raises an eyebrow,  and her red-painted smile turns wry. "Janelle," she says. "I've been keeping you two out of the Feds' crosshairs for a long time. Credit card fraud, manslaughter, vandalism, grave robbery, theft... you've been busy."

 

The two of them look at each other, then at her, both lost for words.

 

"I'm not just a hacker," she says, gesturing at the frankenputer surrounding her. "I'm a really, really _good_ hacker. I can make you disappear completely. That's how we pay the bills for this place, I don't do it for free. But I like to look out for hunters, when I've got the time."

 

"Wow," Mikey says. There's a distinctly covetous gleam in his eye, and Gerard just knows he's already thinking about what he'd be able to do with all this stuff.

 

Gerard suddenly realizes that he's still carrying the plate. "Oh," he says, holding it out to her and looking around for a flat surface that isn't already occupied by complex electronics. "Here, uh..."

 

Janelle takes the plate gratefully, balances it in her lap and takes a large bite out of the sandwich. "Mmf," she says, closing her eyes in evident bliss. "Man, that's good. Tell Em she's outdone herself."

 

"Emilie made that?" Mikey asks, looking mildly surprised.

 

Janelle nods, her mouth full once more. "Yeah, she does all the cooking here. Well, her and this kid called Ryan, he helps her out in the kitchen sometimes. Amanda can't cook for shit, god love her, and I don't have the time. I think Emilie cheats, if you know what I mean. No one's _that_ good."

 

Gerard and Mikey exchange blank looks.

 

"Thanks for lunch, boys," she says, already returning her attention to the screen in front of her. "Catch you later."

 

Understanding that they're being dismissed, Gerard and Mikey back out of the small, cramped room, and Gerard shuts the door behind them.

 

"That was weird," Mikey says under his breath, as the two of them start back down the hallway.

 

"Tell me about it," Gerard whispers back, glancing surreptitiously over his shoulder. "I get the feeling 'weird' is kind of a running joke around here."

 

Mikey acknowledges this with a grunt. "We should call Ray," he says. "You know, let him know we found it."

 

"Good idea," says Gerard, who, what with everything else, had completely forgotten that Ray would be waiting anxiously for news of their progress. "I'll do it, hang on..." he digs in his pocket for his cell phone, speed-dials Ray's number and holds the phone to his ear. It rings, and he imagines Ray swearing as he gets to his feet and starts rummaging through his books and papers, fingers questing for his phone.

 

Gerard waits, but then there's a click and he hears Ray's voice: "Hey, this is Ray. Leave your name and number and I'll call you back when I can."

 

Gerard frowns, and hangs up. "No answer," he says.

 

"He's probably just left his phone under a pile of books again," Mikey says. He stretches, looking supremely unconcerned. "Try again."

 

Gerard does, and he waits, only to be greeted once again by the recorded message. "Ray, you dick, pick up your phone," he says this time, once the beep has sounded. "We're at Maman Brigitte's. Call us back when you get this." He hangs up again, frowning.

 

"Stop worrying," Mikey says. "I'm sure he's fine. He'll have got so caught up in whatever he's researching that he's forgotten to charge it again. He'll call you back."

 

"Yeah, you're probably right," Gerard agrees, returning his phone to his pocket. He's still not convinced.

 

The two of them make their way back downstairs to the main bar. Emilie seems to have retreated to the back room, but Amanda is still behind the bar, taking glasses out of the dishwasher, and she looks up at the sound of their footsteps on the stairs.

 

"So you're staying?" she says. "We've got a load of guest rooms upstairs. If you're gonna be sticking around, you can take one of those." She says _if_ , but, like Emilie, she seems to be taking it as read that they're not going anywhere.

 

Gerard glances at Mikey, who shrugs. Gerard doesn't like the way their hand is being forced, but he has to admit that it's probably what they would have done anyway.

 

"Alright," Mikey says, easily. Gerard has always envied his poker face; he himself is prone to making very telling faces. "Thanks, I think we'll take you up on that. C'mon, Gee, I'm not carrying all your crap in from the car."

 

So saying, Mikey slopes back outside and makes for the car.

 

"You sure about this?" Gerard murmurs as he unlocks the trunk and heaves it open, feeling his feet sinking into the soft, swampy ground. "There's gonna be a lot of other hunters here. If you don't wanna--"

 

"We're here now, right?" Mikey says. He casts an automatic, furtive look over his shoulder,  sweeping for eavesdroppers. "Anyway, we came all the way here, was that for nothing? I can handle the other hunters, I promise," he says, with the faintest twitch of his mouth - _wanna_ , apparently, isn't the problem.

 

Gerard grabs the rucksack containing their few sets of clean clothes and Mikey's laptop, while Mikey takes the nondescript holdall full of assorted firearms, rock salt and other odds and ends. They carry their things back inside and up the stairs, where they work their way along the hallway, trying all the doors until Gerard shoulders open a small room with two twin beds.

 

"Ahh," Gerard says. "This'll do. C'mon, let's ditch our shit and go back down."

 

They unpack their meagre possessions and return to the main bar to find that Adam and his crows have rolled in and are already introducing themselves and buying drinks. Other hunters appear as the afternoon wears on, some wandering down from the rooms upstairs and a handful arriving from the city. Gerard knows a few of them, but the crows are the only ones he and Mikey know well, which is a relief.

 

Dinner at Maman Brigitte's is uneventful, on the face of it, with no punches thrown and no glasses broken, but the atmosphere is thick with a shrieking tension that gnaws at Gerard like a constant, high-pitched noise. So he drinks too much, as usual, and determinedly ignores Mikey's sidelong glances every time he picks up his glass. He stays up and shoots the shit with Adam and Sarah for a while, but he's tired. The cumulative effect of so many days on the road has hit him, and suddenly all he wants is a bed and some peace and quiet. He chuckles to himself. He really is getting old.

 

"Hey," Mikey says quietly, giving him a nudge and returning him to reality. "I'm kind of sleepy."

 

"Horseshit, you are. You're never sleepy," Gerard says thickly, around a wide yawn.

 

"No," Mikey agrees, with an uncharacteristically soft smile. "But you are. You wanna go?"

 

Gerard rubs his eyes. "Yeah," he says. "God, yeah."

 

Mikey smiles, thin and wry but fond, and gets to his feet, stretching lazily. "I think we're gonna turn in, we've had a long day," he announces to the others, who break off their conversations to say goodnight, and he turns to follow Gerard up the stairs to bed.

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard wakes up the next morning to find Mikey already awake and dressed on the other bed, the sheets pooled messily around him, frowning at his cell phone.

 

"Did you try Ray again?" Gerard mumbles sleepily. He needs some coffee, his head hurts and his mouth tastes foul.

 

"Yeah, still no answer," Mikey says distractedly. "Put some clothes on, I wanna go downstairs and get breakfast and I'm pretty sure Amanda'd shoot you if you just stumbled in there in your boxers."

 

Gerard opens his mouth to argue, then changes his mind. Amanda probably would. He groans and rolls himself out of the bed in search of clothes.

 

There are a few other hunters sitting around in the bar, but the tense air of expectation is no less present in the cold light of morning. Or, rather, the warm light of almost-afternoon. Gerard obviously slept later than he'd realized.

 

Between worrying about Ray and worrying about the rest of this whole mess that they're in, Gerard gets more and more antsy by the minute, pacing back and forth around the bar and getting under everyone's feet until Emilie finally gets so irritated that she presses a fifty dollar bill and a shopping list into Mikey's hand and tells him to take Gerard and the car and go out for some goddamn groceries before someone gets shot.

 

 

*

 

 

They take their time, neither of them in much of a hurry to get back to Maman Brigitte's, wandering around different stores as Gerard picks up fruit and vegetables and spices and Mikey trails after him crossing things off Emilie's list. The light is fading by the time they finally return to the car, the sun setting as they make their way back down the narrow track that leads to Maman Brigitte's.

 

And then Gerard catches a glimpse of something moving out there in the dark and he hits the brakes hard, pitching them both forward in their seats.

 

"Hey! The fuck?" Mikey protests, rubbing his forehead and turning a baleful glare on Gerard.

 

"I thought..." he says, uncertainly. "I thought I saw something." He peers out into the gloom, his eyes narrowed. He could have sworn he saw something or somebody stumbling through the trees, but there's no sign of it now. Maybe he's seeing things.

 

"There," says Mikey suddenly, pointing. Gerard looks, and sees a small, slight figure, doubled over, braced against a tree. The two of them watch it in wary silence for a long moment.

 

Gerard squints dubiously into the murky shadows surrounding the car. "You think he's okay?"

 

Mikey makes a dispassionate noise. "Dunno. Come on, let's get going."

 

Gerard ignores him. "I'm going to see," he says. The figure is still bent double, and it seems to be struggling for breath. He opens the door and climbs out, still turning a selectively deaf ear on Mikey's voice behind him. Slowly, carefully, he begins to pick his way through the treacherous underbrush. The swamp tugs at his clothes with thin, sharp little fingers, and each footstep raises a cloud of rich, peaty perfume.

 

"Hey," he calls, tentatively. "Hey, excuse me? You doing okay there?"

 

The figure doesn't give any indication that it heard, so Gerard sidles closer, searching for some sign of fight or flight - something that would explain what the hell this guy is doing hanging out on his own in a swamp in the middle of the night.

 

And then the figure straightens up, and Gerard stops in his tracks. "Oh," he says. "It's you."

 

Frank stares at him unseeingly with bleary, unfocussed eyes, the smell of sweat and fear rolling off him in waves, and Gerard realizes suddenly that something is very, very wrong.

 

"Frank," says Gerard quietly, approaching him slowly with his hands raised as if he's trying to calm a frightened animal. Frank's face is blank, devoid of any sign of recognition, and he's swaying slightly where he stands. "Frank, it's me. Gerard. Come on, let's get you out of here."

 

The blow catches Gerard completely by surprise, landing squarely on Gerard's nose. He reels backwards, swearing loudly. He can feel blood trickling hotly down onto his lips.

 

"Jesus _Christ!_ The fuck is wrong with you, you crazy bastard?! Ow. This had better not be broken, fucker." He feels his nose gingerly, wincing at the dull starburst of pain that flares under his fingertips. It doesn't feel broken, at least. Frank is still staring blankly at him, breathing hard. His sweat-stained t-shirt is torn in at least three places that Gerard can see, and there's a nasty cut still bleeding sluggishly on his forehead. Gerard wonders how long he's been out here; he's obviously pretty out of it.

 

"Come on, then, fucker, let's go," Gerard says thickly, wiping his bloody nose. "And you better not hit me again, or I'm feeding you to the biggest goddamn alligator I can find." He takes a cautious step towards Frank, and when Frank doesn't lash out at him again, Gerard wraps one arm around his shoulders and half-drags-half-carries him back through the trees towards the car. Opening the door, he bundles Frank into the backseat as gently as he can, wrinkling his nose at the smell and uttering a silent but fervent prayer that Frank isn't going to puke in the car. He closes the door again, and picks his way back around to the driver's seat. He can feel Mikey looking at him pointedly, one eyebrow raised.

 

"Say nothing," Gerard growls. "Not one word. Or else."

 

"You're a fucking idiot."

 

"What did I _literally_ just say, Mikey?"

 

"I wasn't listening, I was too busy looking at that mess on your face."

 

Gerard gropes for a smart comeback, but his poor nose is throbbing painfully and he draws a blank. Instead, in what he imagines is a dignified silence, he hits the gas and pulls away.

 

Thankfully, they're not far from Maman Brigitte's, and the drive back doesn't take long. Which is good, because although Mikey doesn't _say_ anything, he sits there radiating exasperation and smug amusement, and Gerard doesn't know how much longer he would have been able to take it.

 

He pulls off the road and onto the narrow dirt track, and all three of them bounce in their seats as the wheels meet the uneven ground. Frank grunts, and Gerard Mikey turn as one to look at him. He's still out cold, his mouth slack and his head lolling on his shoulders. Gerard returns his attention to the winding track, and Mikey shakes his head wonderingly.

 

"Of all the strays you could've picked up," he says, "You had to pick the one that bites."

 

"He doesn't _bite_ ," Gerard says, rolling his eyes. "Probably. Anyway, what was I supposed to do, just leave him out there? Look at him, he's a mess. He would've been eaten by something. Or... drowned in a swamp, I don't know."

 

Mikey heaves a put-upon sigh, but he's smiling as they pull up outside Maman Brigitte's and get out of the car.

 

"Give me a hand," Gerard grunts, manhandling Frank out of the backseat. He's surprisingly heavy for such a short-ass.

 

"Oh, no way," says Mikey, already sauntering towards the stairs up to the front door with the paper bag of groceries. "This is your mess, big brother. You deal with it."

 

Swearing under his breath about no-good ungrateful asshole brothers, Gerard hefts Frank's weight up and over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and carries him up the stairs. Frank _reeks_ , booze and sweat and stale cigarette smoke.

 

"Amanda," Mikey calls, shouldering open the door and putting the brown paper bag down on the bar. "We found a stray, we're bringing him in."

 

"Oh, good grief. Hunter?" Amanda's voice floats up from under the bar.

 

Mikey hesitates for a split second. "Hunter, yeah."

 

"Fine. Find a bed for him upstairs, I think we've still got a few free."

 

Gerard re-adjusts Frank's dead weight on his back, feeling Frank's unkempt hair tickling the stripe of exposed skin between his belt and the hem of his shirt. "Thanks, Amanda," he huffs, starting up the stairs.

 

"No worries," she says wearily, her voice barely carrying over the clinking of the glass bottles as Gerard reaches the landing. He turns slowly in place, looking both ways down the hallway and up the makeshift ladder up to the second floor. How many rooms does this place even have? One thing is for sure, he's not hauling Frank's ass up a goddamn _ladder_.

 

"You sure?" says Mikey, who seems to have read his mind. "It'd be pretty funny."

 

" _Yes_ , I'm sure," Gerard says, with as much dignity as he can muster. "You have any idea which ones on this floor are empty?"

 

Mikey shrugs.

 

"Fine," Gerard says, his patience fraying. "We'll put him in our room. He can have my bed for now, we'll find somewhere else for him later." Without giving Mikey a chance to argue, he starts towards their door, fishes the key out of the pocket of his jeans, Frank swaying precariously on his shoulder, and unlocks it. With a grunt of relief, he lays Frank down on the bed closest to the door and straightens up, hissing through his teeth when his back twinges painfully. Mikey follows him into the small room, and they both look down at Gerard's handiwork.

 

"I know what you're going to say," Gerard says.

 

"This is a really bad idea," says Mikey.

 

"See, I knew you were going to say that. But what were we supposed to do, leave him out there?"

 

Mikey considers this. "Well, yeah."

 

"You're an asshole. Go back downstairs, I'll deal with him."

 

"'Kay." Mikey bumps his shoulder affectionately against Gerard's as he leaves, and Gerard cracks a half smile. Mikey's an asshole sometimes, sure, but isn't that sort of the point of little brothers?

 

Gerard rejoins Mikey at the bar downstairs five minutes later. "I left him with a glass of water and some Advil," he says, yawning and rolling his shoulders. "We'll see what he has to say for himself when he comes round."

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard's nose isn't broken, but he does wake up the next morning with a truly spectacular black eye.

 

Mikey takes one look at him and starts laughing. "That," he says, "Is one hell of a shiner."

 

"And you," Gerard rejoins, somewhat grumpily, "Are one hell of an asshole." He scowls at his reflection in the small mirror on the wall, prodding gingerly at the mottled full moon of blue-purple bruising. "Ow, ow. Haven't had one of these in a while." He winces and sucks air in through his teeth. "C'mon, let's go get some breakfast."

 

No sooner have they sat down at the bar, Emilie appears with two plates, each bearing a slab of home-made toast and a mountain of eggs and fried tomatoes. She follows this with two large, gently steaming cups of coffee, and Gerard stares, dumbfounded, at this vision of loveliness.

 

Once they've eaten, Emilie sets them to work. Mikey slopes off to help Emilie in the kitchen, and Gerard finds himself with a mop, a bucket of water and a whole lot of dirt and congealed beer residue to mop up.

 

Frank sleeps until half past two. Gerard is taking a well-deserved break when he comes shambling down the stairs, blinking and rubbing his eyes. His hair is sticking up in all directions and he's still in the stinking clothes they found him in yesterday, and he bumps into several of the tables on his way across to the bar where Gerard is sitting.

 

Up close, Frank looks even worse. His chin is blue with stubble and there are rings of heavy, bruise-colored shadow around his eyes. His hair is a knotted, greasy mess, and those clothes look as if he's been sleeping in them for a week.

 

"Morning," Gerard says drily, raising an eyebrow and pushing a cup of coffee towards Frank.

 

"Fuck you too," Frank croaks, slumping into a seat and rubbing his eyes. After a moment, he takes the coffee, curling his hands around the mug and sipping at it.

 

Gerard gives him a minute, then says, "You wanna tell me what the hell you were doing last night?"

 

"Last night?" Frank repeats, yawning widely and cracking his knuckles. Gerard watches the tattoos on his fingers dance.

 

"Yeah. You know, running around on your own in the swamp? Decking me when I tried to check you were okay?"

 

Frank looks blank. "Sorry, I guess," he says, although he doesn't sound it. "I've been..." he trails off, waving one hand vaguely. "Lately. You know."

 

"Mm hm." Gerard studies him, frowning. "You seemed pretty messed up."

 

"Uh huh," It couldn't be plainer that Frank doesn't want to talk about it, but Gerard isn't letting him off so easy. There's a small part of him - principally the part near his nose, which is still tender and painful - that wants to take Frank's coffee away from him and hold it ransom until he gets some answers, but he isn't that cruel.

 

"So..." he says encouragingly, but Frank remains stonily uncommunicative. Gerard rolls his eyes, steels himself, and says, "So, are you... you know, okay?"

 

Frank gives him a brief, disbelieving look and lets out a mirthless bark of laughter. "Me?" He says. "I'm fine. Fucking peachy, thanks."

 

"Fine," says Gerard, with a sigh. Pick your battles, he reminds himself. Is this one really worth fighting? "If you don't wanna talk about--"

 

"Well, I don't," Frank snaps. "What are you my therapist? Can we just... leave it, yeah?"

 

"Fine."

 

"Fine."

 

They sit in silence. Frank drinks some more of his coffee.

 

"So," Gerard tries again, after what feels like several hours. "What brings you to Louisiana?"

 

"God, you're so fucking _friendly_ ," Frank growls, passing one hand over his eyes and letting out a long, martyred sigh. Gerard doesn't rise to it. "Would it shut you up if I said it was none of your goddamn business?"

 

"Probably not."

 

"Didn't think so. Fine. I don't know, it just... seemed like the place to be." He casts a sidelong look at Gerard. "This is where you tell me I'm crazy."

 

"I don't think you're crazy," Gerard says. To his surprise, he finds that he means it. "I think you've got some pretty goddamn serious issues--" Frank almost smiles. Almost. "But you're not crazy. There is something going on here. We just don't know what."

 

At that moment, Mikey wanders in from the kitchen, sees Frank, and stops. "Oh," he says. "Hello." He gives Frank a long, calculating look. Frank looks back blearily. "So you're Frank."

 

Frank grunts in response and Gerard looks anxiously between them, trying to gauge whether the tension is going to bloom into a full-fledged fight. He kind of likes Frank, he really does, but if it comes down to it, he's still - always - on Mikey's side.

 

"Leathermouth Frank?" Mikey asks, raising one eyebrow and appraising him coolly.

 

Gerard makes frantic _abort, abort_ faces at Mikey over Frank's shoulder, but Mikey doesn't bat an eyelid.

 

"And you're the one who did that to my brother's face."

 

"Yup," Frank says, a defensive note creeping into his voice.

 

Mikey's face splits into a rare grin and he slaps Frank a high five before sauntering off to pull up a chair.

 

"I like your brother," Frank announces, taking a long sip of his coffee. "He doesn't talk as much as you."

 

 

*

 

 

"Hey, boys," says a familiar voice, and Gerard and Mikey's heads whip around.

 

"Ray! Hey, man, what are you doing here?" Gerard says, delighted, already hopping down from his seat to grab Ray's bag and clap him on the shoulder.

 

"Janelle invited me," Ray beams, and sure enough, Janelle has already appeared on the stairs.

 

"Ray," she beams, tripping lightly across the sun-splashed floor and kissing him on the cheek. "Glad you could make it."

 

Ray chuckles and gestures dismissively, waving her words away, but Gerard would swear that it's a pink, pleased flush creeping across Ray's face. Mikey raises an eyebrow at Gerard and flashes him a crooked grin.

 

"C'mon," Janelle says, taking the jacket draped over Ray's arm. "I'll take this upstairs. You stay here, I wanna introduce you to Emilie." And she marches back up the stairs, turning back once to fire a radiant smile at him.

 

"You and Janelle, huh? Ray, you sly dog," Gerard says, grinning and elbowing him as soon as he's sure Janelle is out of earshot. To his surprise, Ray stiffens, his face flushing again.

 

"Drop it, Gee," Ray says, uncharacteristically sharply.

 

Gerard raises his eyebrows. "I was kidding," he says. "But you obviously weren't. What gives?"

 

"What are we, fifteen? None of your damn business, that's what gives," Ray growls, but Gerard doesn't drop it. He can feel his own grin broadening, spreading out across his face like ink in water.

 

"Ray," he says, fighting the urge to laugh, "Have you got a _crush_ on Janelle?"

 

"Absolutely not. You have a sick, sick mind. And you need glasses."

 

"Uh uh, I know what I saw. So where did you two meet, huh? You--"

 

"I mean it, Gerard. Fucking drop it," Ray snaps, turning to look at him. "Please," he adds, after a moment, when he's regained some of his composure.

 

Confused, Gerard drops back and doesn't say another word on the subject.

 

 

*

 

 

Ray and Janelle, it turns out, have been friends since approximately forever.

 

"No shit," says Gerard, grinning and taking a seat opposite Ray and Janelle at one of the scrubbed wooden tables. "I don't know why I'm not surprised, Ray, you know fucking everyone."

 

Ray shrugs easily. "I was in the game a long time," he says easily. "If you can do the same job for thirty years without meeting anyone you're probably doing something wrong."

 

"You're not out of it yet," Mikey says. Ray gives him a warning look, but he's smiling.

 

"I knew there was something going on," says Janelle. "I was reading the reports. Not just hunter stuff, either, there were one or two things the Feds got involved in. The real Feds, I mean, not a couple of you assholes with fake badges. Which, by the way, uh uh. I've seen more convincing fakes on fourteen year olds trying to buy beer."

 

"You think you could do better?" Gerard asks, mildly offended. Their fakes have served them well over the years.

 

Janelle raises an eyebrow. "Honey," she says. " _Please_. I don't know why anyone talks to you, getting up in their faces with those things."

 

"Our overwhelming charm and good looks," Mikey deadpans, and Janelle purses her lips skeptically.

 

"Anyway," she says. "I called Ray. He seemed like the man for the job." She wraps an arm around Ray's shoulders and beams at him

 

Gerard could be wrong, but it almost looks like Ray is blushing.

 

They stay there for a while, just shooting the shit and enjoying each other's company as other hunters mill around and Ryan trots in and out of the kitchen and the smell of frying onions blossoms out and fills the room. The afternoon melts into a warm evening, the sky shot with streaks of gold and royal purple. Gerard gets up and wanders outside, nothing in his head but the vague idea that a smoke would go nicely with the beer he's just finished. He ambles out through the front door and lights one up, leaning back against the wall and looking up at the sky.

 

He doesn't go back inside straight away once he's dropped the butt and ground it out under his heel. It's a nice night, after all, and he's in no hurry. He can't remember the last time he and Mikey came this far south, but, he thinks, as he looks out at the sun setting over the swamps of Lake Pontchartrain, he could learn to like New Orleans.

 

And then a heavy weight barrels into him, pinning him against the wall with a loud thud. It knocks the breath out of him, forcing a startled grunt out of his mouth.

 

"What the fuck," he wheezes, shoving back against the weight. It's a person, he realizes, finally focusing on a face with wide, staring eyes and an unshaven chin.

 

"It was you," snarls the face.

 

"Hold the fuck up," Gerard croaks. "Quinn?"

 

"You," Quinn continues, ignoring Gerard completely. He looks deranged, breathing hard like he's been running, his eyes glazed and his teeth bared. Gerard can feel the heat of Quinn's hands through his shirt, and his face is shining with sweat. "It was you and your fucking freak brother!"

 

"What the fuck," Gerard says again, shoving Quinn hard, but he barely falters. "Quinn, man, what the hell are you talking about? Are you okay? You look kind of sick."

 

"You killed him!" Quinn roars. "Bert--Bert's fucking dead because of you two!"

 

Of course. Gerard could kick himself, he should have known this was coming. Knowing what he knows about Quinn, he should have been expecting this all along.

 

"Okay," he says, in the calmest voice he can muster. "Quinn, I know you're pissed off, I know you're hurting, I know you're... real cut up about Bert. So were we. But it wasn't our fault, okay?"

 

"Shut up!" Quinn bellows, giving Gerard a rough push backwards so that his head cracks painfully against the wall. "You fucked him up and that freak sent us into that nest!" Spit sprays from his mouth, and Gerard tries not to flinch as he feels it stipple his face. "And now," he says, his voice perched on the edge of unhinged laughter, "I'm gonna fucking kill you both. You and that thing. An eye for an eye, yeah?"

 

With dawning horror, Gerard realizes something about Quinn Allman: the man is batshit insane. Completely, utterly out of his goddamn mind. Gerard's own mind works furiously. Quinn has the upper hand, he's almost certainly armed and Gerard is not. He's also hell-bent on taking what, in his eyes, is just revenge for an unforgivable crime. And, Gerard thinks, with a horrible sinking feeling, Quinn won't care if he goes down with them.

 

Playing for time, his heart kicking in his chest, he says, "The thing? I don't get it, Quinn, what d'you mean?"

 

"Don't fucking play dumb with me," Quinn hisses. His breath reeks, like something dead and rotten. "Your _brother_ , if that's even what he is. I don't care who you've got fooled, right? You ain't fooling me. There's something wrong with that kid. Call yourself a hunter? You should have put a fuckin' bullet through his brain years ago."

 

"Shut up," Gerard growls, fury and fear blinding him, coursing through him and giving him strength. Alarms are screaming in Gerard's head. Quinn _knows_. He knows about Mikey, or at least he's guessed more than enough to cause serious trouble. If Quinn's told anyone else what he suspects about Mikey, Mikey's a dead man walking. Gerard feels like he's locked in some kind of awful waking nightmare, where all his darkest, most deeply buried fears are lying in wait like gators for his frantically flailing feet to come within snapping distance. "You shut the _fuck_ up. Don't you--don't you dare talk about Mikey like that."

 

"Why?" drawls Quinn, his chapped lips stretching into a horrible, cracked smile and his hoarse voice dropping to a whisper. "You don't got the guts to kill him, huh? Your little pet monster? You're pathetic."

 

Something in Gerard boils over and he lashes out, his blood screaming in his ears, his fist meeting Quinn's cheekbone with a satisfying crack. The starburst of pain in his knuckles feels good, it sharpens him up and helps him think straight again. Quinn stumbles, caught off balance by the sudden savagery of the blow and cursing a blue streak, and Gerard presses his advantage. He seizes the front of Quinn's sweat-stained shirt and, with his other hand, grabs a fistful of Quinn's dirty hair and twists viciously.

 

"Now, you listen to me, you poor bastard," he breathes. Quinn stares up at him, his eyes full of hate and hunger and rage. "I'm sorry about Bert. I'm sorry he never wanted to fuck you back. It's all real fucking sad, okay? But if you lay a single goddamn _finger_  on Mikey..." he takes a deep, unsteady breath. "I swear to god, you're  gonna regret it."

 

He lets go of Quinn. For a long moment, neither of them moves. They're both as still as corpses, both panting, and then Quinn lunges. Gerard tries to duck out of the way but Quinn is faster, maddened by grief and fury, and the two of them tumble to the ground, hissing and snarling like animals. Quinn twists Gerard's arm and forces him onto his stomach, with his face pressed into the moldering leaf muck on the wooden deck. He can feel Quinn's heavy body on top of his, a rough hand scrabbling in his hair and slamming his face down against the floor. Fireflies spark and burst before Gerard's eyes, his vision dimming. He feels Quinn draw his head up again, preparing for another strike, and he writhes desperately, trying to claw back some advantage. With a grunt of effort, Quinn maintains the upper hand and shoves Gerard's head down again. Gerard feels something warm and sticky running down from his forehead into his eyes. He tries again to struggle free but he's fighting a losing battle, his brain rattling around in his skull and his eyes about to flop out of their sockets. Dimly, he knows that two, maybe three more blows will knock him out, leave him helplessly vulnerable, and leave _Mikey_ …

 

 

Gathering every scrap of his remaining strength, Gerard bucks as hard as he can. With a startled yell, Quinn rolls off him and Gerard scrambles to his feet. He starts towards Quinn, blood running stickily down into his eyes and pure, quivering fury suffusing every drop of his blood. He's going to kill Quinn, rip him limb from limb for the things he said about--

 

And then the deafening crack of a gunshot splits the warm evening in two, and the pair of them freeze. Slowly, Gerard looks back over his shoulder, raising his empty hands.

 

Behind him stands Mikey, his face as hard and cold as ice, the gun in his hands pointed squarely at Quinn's heart. The last shot was a warning, Gerard realizes, his body slumping as relief balloons in his chest like a mushroom cloud. Mikey never misses.

 

"Get - the _fuck_ \- away from my brother," he grits out, through clenched teeth. Quinn's hackles are raised, and he doesn't move an inch.

 

And then Quinn pulls a gun too. Gerard doesn't speak, doesn't even think, just throws himself on top of Mikey and brings them both crashing to the ground as the bullet scores a white-hot line through the air over their heads. Mikey's own gun flies from his hand, clattering away across the deck. Winded and startled, Mikey grabs for it, but Quinn darts forward and brings his foot down hard on Mikey's thin wrist. Mikey hisses like a cat and lets loose a stream of colorful invective, which Quinn ignores completely. He looms over the pair of them, the muzzle of his gun trained on Mikey's face.

 

"Someone," Quinn pants, his lank hair falling over his eyes as he stares wildly down at them, "Should've done this years ago. You would've, if you weren't so goddamn chickenshit," he adds, turning on Gerard but not moving the gun off Mikey. He spits on the ground, an inch from Gerard's paralyzed fingertips. "Call yourself a hunter," he says, his voice rising hysterically. "A _hunter_ , and you're running around with this freak, this-- _monster_ and Bert's fucking _dead!_ Whose fucking side are you _on_ , you son of a bitch?"

 

His hands - hell, his whole body is shaking, like the maelstrom of grief and fury and hatred inside him has grown too big for his body to contain. He takes one unsteady step forward and plants his foot on Mikey's chest instead. His hands are still trembling wildly as he levels the muzzle of the gun at Mikey's head. Gerard feels like he's trapped in a fishbowl, sheer terror like he's never felt before trickling icily through his veins. Something, something, shit, he has to do something now before it's too late, but what?

 

He sees Quinn's finger tightening on the trigger, and the panic explodes in Gerard. He lashes out desperately, not knowing what he's trying to do but knowing that he's out of time to think. His boot meets Quinn's knee with a sickening crunch and Quinn howls, crashing down like a felled tree. Another shot cracks through the air overhead and the breath leaves Mikey's lungs in a rush, but he's okay, he's safe. Gerard can feel Mikey's heart thumping next to his own, thinks, _alive_ , and that gives him the strength to scramble off Mikey and get to his feet. Quinn is struggling to get up, Gerard hopes, with a hot, sick rush of spite and loathing, that his kneecap is shattered. Gerard starts forward to kick him again, already imagining blood pouring from Quinn's nose, but Quinn is too quick. He's up, the gun still in his hands, and once again he trains it on Mikey. Mikey is back on his feet too, still as stone, like an animal torn between fight and flight. Quinn laughs, a horrible, cracked, unhinged sound.

 

"You better run," he breathes, and Mikey doesn't wait to be asked twice. He streaks off into the trees, just a blur of motion, and Quinn, flat-footed and brutal as a maddened bull, takes off after him. Gerard groans, cursing a blue streak with all the breath left in him. Mikey is quick, quicker than most humans, with a fox's gift for wriggling through impossibly tight spaces. But Quinn is crazy, blood-mad, too far gone to care about hurting himself. Gerard bites down hard on his own tongue, furious with himself. How the fuck could he have let this happen? As he sees it, there's only one thing to do. He crosses himself - just for luck, not for the protection of a god he hasn't believed in for years - and picks up the gun that Mikey dropped, flicks the safety on, tucks it into his belt and starts running.

 

Gerard runs blindly through the swamp, stumbling in and out of patches of syrupy light, and before long his shirt is damp with sweat and his hair is plastered damply to his forehead. Batting midges away from his face, he forces himself onwards. His lungs are burning and his legs ache, but the pain is good. It stops him thinking about how spectacularly he's failed, about what could be happening to Mikey right now. _If you've touched one hair on his goddamn head_ , Gerard thinks savagely, _I am going to take you apart. Slowly. And I'm going to enjoy it_.

 

It's no good, there's no sign of them. He slows to a graceless, unsteady halt, his hands braced against his knees as he sucks in breath after greedy breath. He knows which way they set off, but there were a hundred places where Mikey could have looped back around towards Maman Brigitte's, a thousand places where he could have hidden.

 

"Fuck," Gerard mutters eloquently, rubbing his eyes and swallowing the panic like bile. He needs to keep it together now, for Mikey's sake. Think, he tells himself. Just think. He straightens up, inhaling deeply and listening intently for anything, anything at all.

 

And then he freezes. Voices. He heard voices. Specifically, Quinn's voice, cracked with pain and anger. Gerard can scarcely believe his luck. Silent as a cat, he slinks between the trees towards the source of the noise.

 

He finds the two of them in a small clearing, Quinn facing away from Gerard, Mikey on his knees with his back to Quinn. Quinn's gun is pointed squarely at the back of Mikey's head, and a wave of icy fury that submerges Gerard. Mikey shot in the back by a man too cowardly to watch the light leave his eyes? _Over my dead body_ , Gerard thinks. He creeps forward with agonizing slowness, knowing that if he rushes he risks alerting Quinn to his presence and if he doesn't he risks being too late to save Mikey.

 

He slides one hand carefully down to his belt, his fingers skimming over his own clammy skin and curling around the butt of the gun. He seems to have slipped into some sort of trance state, where his brain his disengaged and something older, something primal and cold, has taken over.

 

"I don't know what--what the _fuck_ you are," breathes Quinn, his voice cracking. "But you ain't right. You're one of them, you're some fucked up freak. That loser brother of yours should've been hunting you down, not protecting you!" He's fidgeting restlessly from foot to foot, making it difficult for Gerard to get a clear shot at him. He resists the urge to hiss through his teeth. Every second he waits, every single second that Mikey spends at the mercy of this psychopath is another second too long.

 

"Not anymore, though," Quinn murmurs. His voice is perched on the knife edge of laughter, and he sounds like the playground bully with the loser's lunch money already clinking in his pocket - that same greedy triumph, the thrill of getting away with it.

 

Not for long, though. Not if Gerard has anything to do with it. Quinn seems to be steadying himself, stilling and raising his own gun again. This is it, Gerard realizes, and just then, it's the only clear thought in his head. This is the way it has to be. Do it now, or do it never.

 

So, quite calmly, he does.

 

He raises Mikey's gun, briefly takes aim, and pulls the trigger.

 

The crack echoes through the trees, and there's a strange, suspended moment of deafening silence before Quinn crashes to the ground, blood already spilling out and matting his lank hair. Somehow, the dull, heavy thud seems to break the spell.

 

"Mikey!" Gerard shouts, stumbling forward and kicking Quinn's body out of his way. "Jesus Christ, Mikes, I'm so fucking sorry. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

 

"Didn't get a chance," grunts Mikey, as Gerard helps him to his feet. "Thanks to you." Mikey graces Gerard with a rare true smile, the one that shows his teeth, the one he hates so much that there isn't a single photograph of it. "Thanks, Gee."

 

Gerard brushes Mikey's thanks off impatiently, opting instead to hug him tightly. Mikey does not like being hugged, and it's a mark of how much he cares for Gerard that he doesn't just tolerate it, he hugs back.

 

"Hey," says Gerard. He feels dizzy and light-headed with relief, all if the tension in him spiraling away like water down a plughole. He claps Mikey on the back, more for his own benefit than his brother's.  "Hey. You know I've always got your back. It's my job."

 

"I know." Mikey smiles a wry, fond smile. He glances down dispassionately at Quinn's rapidly cooling corpse. "I guess we'd better get rid of... this."

 

"Agreed."

 

Mikey looks at the thing that once was Quinn for a long, thoughtful moment. Then, he says, "I vote we throw him to the gators. Unless you've got a better plan."

 

With some distaste, Gerard crouches down and methodically relieves Quinn's now uninhabited body of its wallet ("We can burn that later, we don't need to give the cops any help ID'ing him,"), cell phone ("Got to be careful with that, it might have that GPS thing in it,"), dog tags and gun.

 

Throughout all of this, Mikey remains silent. He occasionally answers to Gerard forced small talk in monosyllabic noises, but that's all. Together, they lift the thing that was Quinn - Gerard at his head, blood soaking his hands and making his fingers slippery, and Mikey at his feet - and carry it to the water's edge. They set it down gently, its face upturned and still contorted into an ugly grimace.

 

"Ugh," Gerard mutters, looking down at his gore-streaked palms. It's under his nails, too, and down his wrists. He wipes them on the front of his t-shirt, leaving two rust-colored tracks down his chest and over his stomach. "Hey, don't forget your gun. It's over there somewhere, on the ground."

 

"Got it," says Mikey, patting the holster at his hip. "C'mon, let's go."

 

Gerard falls into step beside him as they start back towards Maman Brigitte's. "Okay," he says. "Seriously, what's up? And don't tell me it's nothing. I know you."

 

Mikey half-shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "I feel kind of bad for Jepha and Dan. They already lost Bert. It's gonna hit them hard, losing Quinn so soon after that."

 

Gerard snorts. "Mikey, he was going to kill you. He was about to put a bullet through you and put you down like a dog. No way was I going to let that happen. Anyway, he was a fucking basket case. You heard him. Even if we'd let him live he'd only have come after you again. It had to be done."

 

"Yeah, that's true," Mikey concedes. "Okay. But what I wanna know is, how did he know about me?"

 

Gerard knows perfectly well that this is what Mikey's been thinking about this whole time. He isn't the type to get all broken up over someone's else's hurt feelings - even Jepha, who Gerard knows he's always liked.

 

"I don't know," he says, eventually. "Maybe he met another one, you and William aren't the only ones out there. Or maybe he read something and he just, you know, put it together. Or maybe he's just a fucked up ex-junkie psycho. The point is, it wasn't anything you did."

 

Mikey looks at him, his eyes wide and unguarded. He looks strangely young and vulnerable, and all of a sudden Gerard is thirteen years old again, wiping the blood from Mikey's split lip and clumsily sticking a Band-Aid over his grazed knee after the kids who always called him a freak cornered him at school one day. He wasn't always so good at pretending. Gerard remembers him vividly as he was then, a quiet, subdued child with fair hair and eyes older than the mountains.

 

"Are you sure?" Mikey asks, his voice barely more than a whisper. "He had me on my knees with a gun to my head and I just--I kept thinking, what did I do that gave me away?"

 

"No," Gerard says firmly. "No, Mikes, listen. Quinn was out of his goddamn mind, okay? You didn't do anything. There's no way he could have guessed."

 

"Okay," Mikey mumbles, still not sounding convinced, but looking slightly less worried. "I trust you."

"Good."

 

In all honesty, Gerard is worried too. He can't think what might have told Quinn that there was more to Mikey than meets the eye. Quinn was like a guard dog, all teeth and claws and snarling savagery, more lethal weapon than human being. He was dangerous, sure, but he wasn't too sharp. Before long, they're going to be sharing Maman Brigitte's with a lot of very, very smart hunters. If even Quinn could spot it, who else will? He wonders, sometimes, just how much it costs Mikey to pretend to be human. He wonders if Mikey even pretends around him, if it's easier to maintain the facade all the time than it is to raise and lower it depending on the people he's around.

 

 

With some difficulty, he wrenches himself back into the present. He's got a lot of blood to wash off his hands before dinner.

 

Back at Maman Brigitte's, Gerard strolls around behind the bar to wash his hands while Mikey stops to chat with Adam. He feels better already, calmer and less shaken now he's had time to steady his nerves. He soaps his hands and rubs them together vigorously, making sure there's no trace of green-black swamp mud under his nails or of Quinn Allman's blood in the whorls of his fingertips. Once he's satisfied, he turns off the faucet and shakes the worst of the water off. He's vaguely aware of Emilie emerging from the back room behind him, but he still starts when he feels her cool breath on the nape of his neck.

 

"Bloody hands," she murmurs, so low that no one else can hear. Gerard freezes, eying her warily as sick, hot panic cascades into his stomach. His mouth is suddenly dry, but he licks his lips and forces the words out. "You gonna tell anyone?"

 

She fixes him with a calculating look. "Maybe. Who was it?"

 

"Quinn Allman," Gerard says quietly, deciding that lying to Emilie would not only be pointless but probably more dangerous than telling the truth. "Another hunter. He ran with the Used."

 

"Mhm," she says, her expression inscrutable. "Why?"

 

"He threatened Mikey." Gerard's teeth are clenched. "He was gonna..."

 

"Expose him?" she says sharply, and Gerard's heart feels like it's being squeezed by an iron fist. His hand shoots out of its own accord, catching her wrist.

 

"Please," he breathes, "You can tell them... tell them I killed Quinn, I don't care, but _please_ \--"

 

"Let go of me." Her voice is cold and hard. "Right now."

 

He drops her wrist.

 

"Thank you," she says stiffly. "Now, you listen to me. I like you, and I like your brother. But if you touch me again, you're gonna lose your hands."

 

"Sorry," he mumbles, simultaneously scared and shamefaced. He can feel his face coloring. "I didn't think."

 

"Good." At least she looks slightly mollified. "No, I won't tell. Not unless I have to, anyway. Just of interest, what is he?"

 

"Who?" Gerard asks, distracted.

 

"Mikey," she says. "What is he?"

 

Gerard hesitates. He's spent so many years keeping Mikey's secret, lying and pretending and now he's killed for his cause. This feels as wrong and frightening as wading into a river with pockets full of stones. But this is Emilie, and something tells him that she won't hesitate to make good on her threats.

 

"A changeling," he whispers, and the word feels like a bird bursting through his chest and spreading its wings.

 

"A _changeling?_ " she repeats, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "I've never met one before. Fascinating. Well, Gerard, I'm glad we had this little chat." She pats him on the cheek with one small, cool hand, and then she's gone.

 

He slumps against the wall, his heart thumping as if he's had a brush with death itself.

 

He's kind of lost his appetite.

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard doesn't tell Mikey that Emilie knows what happened earlier, or that she knows about what he is. It would only freak him out even more, and god only knows he doesn't deserve that. Not today. Gerard knows that Quinn's attack shook him, and badly. He doesn't need to know.

 

Gerard sits at the bar and broods, drumming his fingertips against the side of his glass. This is the first time he's told anyone about Mikey; since they lost their parents, he and Mikey (and perhaps Gabe) have been the only ones who knew. It's been that way for years, and though it hasn't always been comfortable, it was at least fairly safe. Adding someone else who's in on the secret, especially someone like Emilie that he barely knows and definitely doesn't trust, is a frightening prospect.

 

"Cheer up," says Amanda. "It might never happen."

 

Gerard gives her a _look_ , but she doesn't flinch. Instead, she rolls her eyes and takes his empty glass away to refill it.

 

"Thanks," he says, only slightly grudgingly, taking a sip. He taps his heel against the bar stool's leg, wishing that he and Mikey had a hunt on. Something, _anything_ to burn up this restless energy. Maybe he should go out and shoot at some empty cans in the back yard or something.

 

"Ugh, stop that," Amanda groans, flicking a dish towel in his direction. "I'm getting tired just looking at you."

 

Part of him wants to argue, but a larger part of him thinks it would be prudent not to antagonize the person with the power to grant him free booze. "Sorry," he says contritely.

 

"I forgive you," she says graciously. "Anyway, if you can hold out until tomorrow night we should be able to keep you entertained."

 

"Oh?" Gerard raises an eyebrow. "What's happening tomorrow?"

 

"We're having a little meeting," she says. "We're expecting a few more guests."

 

"Hunters?"

 

"Yeah. Anyway, we're gonna get everyone together and have a chat about what we're going to do."

 

"Huh. Okay." He nods thoughtfully. On one hand, he's glad to hear that they're doing _something_. On the other hand, he kind of wishes it could have been tonight. He's going to crawl out of his fucking skin at this rate.

 

Amanda eyes him shrewdly. "So keep a lid on all the macho action man bullshit, alright?" she says tartly. "It's only one more day."

 

He grins sheepishly up at her, and she flashes him a knowing smile and walks away.

 

By dinner time, Mikey is nowhere to be found, and as Gerard is almost sure he saw him sloping off with Pete earlier, he doesn't go looking for him. Patrick is sitting alone, an arm's length of space between him and everyone else, toying unenthusiastically with his food. There's absolutely no way Gerard is going to get in the middle of that, so he veers away and joins Ray, Adam and a couple of the crows instead. Adam knows his stuff, but, over the years, Ray has helped him out with more than one difficult case. Ray looks drained; Adam bleak, Sarah and Vince likewise.

 

"Bad day at the office?" Gerard says, as he drops into an empty chair and puts his bowl of gumbo down in front of him.

 

Adam chuckles blackly. "Yeah. The copier ran out of toner and I got a sore back from sitting in that damn chair all day."

 

Adam returns to a half-hearted argument with Sarah about revenants, and Gerard looks over at Ray instead.

 

"So, uh," he says tentatively. "What did happen with you and Janelle?"

 

"Absolutely nothing," Ray intones, his voice a funereal monotone. He rolls his eyes. "Nothing, okay? We're just..."

 

"Aw, c'mon." Gerard isn't having that, no sir. "I see the way you look at her." He pokes Ray in the shoulder. "So what's the deal?"

 

Ray sighs, and looks at Gerard, the pretense falling away. "Janelle's a very dear friend," he says quietly. "Who I value far too much to make some, some... stupid misjudged pass at."

 

Gerard frowns. "You're making it sound like you're some creep hitting on her in a bar."

 

Ray looks blankly back at him.

 

"Her face when you got here," Gerard says earnestly, leaning in. "Her _smile_ , man. You could have powered a city with it."

 

This doesn't go down nearly as well as Gerard was expecting. Ray looks positively stricken for a moment, then he seems to regain control of himself. "I don't think so," he says, quietly. "Can we just... leave it?"

 

Gerard doesn't push it and they eat in near-silence, the mood tense and restless. No one seems to feel much like talking, and Gerard goes to bed early that night, sober, for once, instead of waiting for Mikey. He doesn't know exactly what's going on with his brother and Pete, and something tells him that he'll be much happier if things stay that way. He trudges up the stairs and down the narrow hallway to the room that he and Mikey are sharing, closes the door behind him and begins to go through the motions of stripping off his boots and his clothes, brushing his teeth, climbing into the twin bed and pulling the covers up. It's another hot, muggy night, the air as thick and sticky-sweet as syrup, dead and silent. He gets up to push the window open in the hope of catching so much as the suggestion of a breeze, but there's nothing. The night is as still and quiet as the dark waters of Lake Pontchartrain itself.

 

He gets back into the bed and, unbidden, Quinn's face flashes before his eyes. It thins and darkens, becomes Mikey's then Emilie's, and Gerard grits his teeth and pushes it from his mind. He did what he had to do, that's all there is to it. He refuses to think any more about it. He rolls over, kicking the covers away, and wills himself to sleep. Tomorrow, he thinks. By this time tomorrow, when the other hunters have arrived, they'll have a plan. The thought calms the uneasy ticking of his mind, and, before long, he sleeps.

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard wakes slowly, gently, and floats lazily on the surface of consciousness. He stares at the ceiling, listening to Mikey's soft, snuffling snores and wondering, idly, whether he's been dreaming. The room is dark, and the air is blood-warm. He kicks the covers away and lets out a long, slow breath of contentment.

 

And then he hears it. A grunt, a muffled thud. A moment of silence, and then, barely audible through the wall, a faint whimper of distress. Another, louder thud and another whimper, this one high and urgent. Gerard lies completely still, straining to hear. There's a lull of almost a minute, and he's just beginning to relax again when there's a long, drawn out whine, high and thin, scared.

 

Gerard sits up. That did not sound like a happy noise. That was fear, maybe pain. Then again, he could be wrong. The last thing he wants to do is burst in on some other hunter getting lucky, but... maybe he should wait. Just a little bit longer, just in case.

 

But then there comes a muffled sob, and Gerard gives up. No one makes noises like _that_ when they're fucking, not unless something is seriously wrong. He gets to his feet (carefully, so that the bedsprings don't squeak) and pads noiselessly through the dark towards the door. Opening it slowly, he creeps out. The noise seems to be coming from the room directly across the hallway, so he crosses to the door and knocks on it tentatively. There's no answer, but after several seconds he hears a shuddering gasp and another sob, so he eases the door open and slips inside. It's just as dark in here as it was outside in the hallway, and he swears under his breath and gropes for the light switch, eventually, he finds it, and, flicking it on, sees--

 

\--Frank. Frank, lying tangled in the sheets, fast asleep and whimpering in terror. Gerard stands rooted to the spot, fighting the urge to turn around and walk his ass right back out of there again. This is private, he doesn't want to see this. Frank certainly wouldn't want him to see this. He takes a step backwards, his stomach turning. Frank squirms, lashing out wildly and choking on another dry, cracked sob.

 

Gerard can't watch any more. Steeling himself, he walks over to the bed, crouches down, takes Frank by the shoulder and shakes him gently.

 

"Frank," he says. "Frank, come on, wake up. You're having a nightmare. Frank?"

 

Frank jerks upright, gasping for breath like a drowning man, his eyes wide and staring. He's breathing hard, and Gerard sidles backwards in Frank hits him again.

 

"Hey," Gerard says softly. "You okay?"

 

Frank looks down at Gerard as if he's seeing him for the first time. The look on his face - scared, and so _lost_ \- scrapes painfully against Gerard's heart.

 

"I..." Frank says hoarsely, licking his dry lips and rubbing his eyes. "What?"

 

Sitting there in a holey, sweat-stained t-shirt and ratty boxers with the sheets pooled around him, he looks startlingly young, almost naked.

 

"Shhhh," Gerard murmurs ineffectually. He reaches out, thinking vaguely to pat Frank on the back, then thinks better of it.

"You, uh. I think you were dreaming."

 

Frank groans and rubs his eyes again, as if he's ashamed to let Gerard see him in this state.

 

"You gonna be okay?" Gerard asks again, feeling useless and awkward and wondering if coming in here was the right thing to do after all.

 

Frank shakes his head, and draws a long, shuddering breath. Slowly, clumsily, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and leans forward, hunching protectively over his knees. "I see their faces," he says softly. His head is in his hands, his small body shaking with barely contained sobs. Gerard wants to touch him, hold him, but he doesn't dare. It's as if Frank's grief is incandescent, hot enough to blister the palms of Gerard's hands. "Burning. Screaming. Sometimes they're-- they're calling out to me and all I can do is watch the flesh melt off their bones. I should... I should have died with them. That night," he whispers, his voice small and cracked. "When you found me in the swamp, you remember? I was looking for gators. I wanted to die. And I--I was so fucking angry that you were there, trying to get between me and what I wanted. I knew you wouldn't let me die."

 

Gerard can feel his face flushing hotly, and hopes to god that Frank won't notice. He feels awful, uncomfortable and somehow deeply embarrassed. He isn't sorry he woke Frank up, but, Christ, he wishes he'd stayed in bed. His entire being is suffused with the inescapable feeling that he's stumbled into something intensely private, something no one was ever supposed to see. He wonders if he should go back to his own room and leave Frank alone with his guilt and his misery. Would that be kinder? Gerard has absolutely no idea.

 

"I, uh," says Frank, after a silence that seems to last an eternity. He's staring fixedly down at his hands, deliberately avoiding Gerard's concerned eyes. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone. You know, about... yeah."

 

"What?" Gerard says, caught off guard and more than a little offended that Frank really thinks he'd go telling tales about this. Some things are fair game for roadhouse banter, but not this. This is very obviously still too raw, the wounds still too fresh. "I-- no, of course not. Not a word."

 

Frank looks up at Gerard, and manages a tiny smile. His eyelashes are sparkling with tears, his eyes red-rimmed. "Thanks," he whispers. "Look, I'm... sorry I've been giving you such a hard time. You're a good guy."

 

Gerard blinks, startled. Whatever he was expecting Frank to say next, it certainly wasn't that. It also doesn't escape his notice that this isn't the first time he's been told that he's a good guy recently. He doesn't know what to make of this. He doesn't feel like a good guy. Especially not after some of the things he's done lately. "That's, uh. Don't worry about it," he manages eventually. It's just a lot to try to get his head around at once, that's all.

 

"I guess I should go back to bed," he says, after another minute of silence. "Are you sure you're gonna be alright on your own in here?"

 

Frank nods defiantly, just once, and Gerard shoots him an encouraging smile. "Okay," he says. "I'm just across the hallway. Give me a call if there's anything I can do, yeah?"

 

He doesn't know what makes him say it. Just like that night in Carthage, when he found himself offering Frank a ride to Louisiana.  There's just something about Frank, something that Gerard wants to help and protect even though Frank has made it abundantly clear that Gerard's help is the last thing he wants. It's very strange. He dismisses the thought. This is 3AM talking, he's sure of it.

 

"Okay," Frank murmurs, yawning, and Gerard blinks at him, genuinely startled.

 

"What, no I-don't-need-nobody schtick this time?"

 

Frank chuckles blackly. "No," he says. "Not this time. Night, Gerard."

 

Gerard stands up and stretches, then, in a sudden, reckless moment of impulse, reaches out to touch Frank's shoulder. Frank stiffens, and for a split second Gerard thinks he's misjudged it horribly, but then Frank is reaching back for Gerard, holding on to him for dear life. Gerard can feel him shaking and holds him tighter, his arms wrapped around Frank's back, hands splayed against the soft, tattered cotton of his shirt. Frank's face is pressed into Gerard's neck, his stubble rough against Gerard's neck. Gerard desperately wants to say something, anything, but he's too scared of breaking the spell that's lying over them both like snow.

 

"Shhh," Gerard murmurs, stroking Frank's back like he's nothing but a frightened child. "I'm here. I got you."

 

Frank lets out a shaky breath, his fingers digging into Gerard's back. Gerard's knees are sore from kneeling on the hard floor, but he doesn't want to move. This Frank is like a stranger to him; it just seems so unlikely that this scared, sad, broken boy was underneath the hard veneer. Which, Gerard reflects, was probably exactly what Frank wanted.

 

Back in his own bed, Gerard closes his eyes and visualizes Frank's face, trying to get a fix on his age. His face looks young, unlined, but he has the eyes of a man who's seen enough suffering for two lifetimes. He's as scarred as any hunter twice Gerard's age, but from what Gerard knows of him, Frank isn't exactly the careful type. He's prematurely bitter and angry, too, but then, that's hardly surprising either. It's hard to tell, but Gerard would put his money on Frank being a few years younger than he himself.

 

Too young, Gerard thinks, as he slips below the surface of sleep. Too fucking young to be so old.

 

 

 

*

 

 

True to his word, Gerard gets up the next morning and doesn't breathe a word of what happened with Frank the night before. It feels strangely distant, like a weird dream, and the more he thinks about it, the more he begins to wonder if it even happened.

 

He spends the whole day feeling unsettled and tense. Emilie and Ray are holed up in the back room, comparing notes, and Mikey seems even less inclined to talk than usual. Gerard tries not to wonder what he was talking about with Pete last night. He's not at all sure he wants to know. He whiles away the afternoon between the bar and the kitchen, pacing around restlessly, snapping at anyone who talks to him and getting under Amanda's feet.

 

When the evening finally rolls around, everyone sits down to eat, then, afterwards, Amanda taps her fork against her glass and silence falls.

 

"Emilie," she says sweetly. "All yours."

 

"Thank you." Emilie moves forward into the light. Somehow, her soft, fair hair and the beaded shawl wrapped around her shoulders seem blurred, as if the girl is being stripped away to reveal something harder underneath. "Here's what we know: something wicked this way comes." Her voice is low, barely a whisper, but the rest of the room is silent. She doesn't need to shout to keep them quiet. "Something bigger and badder than any of you could even imagine. _We could lose this war_."

 

Silence, pure and perfect. You could hear a pin drop.

 

Emilie slides gracefully from her bar stool and begins to walk slowly around the room, her heels clicking on the bare boards and every eye following her every move.

 

"So what do we do?" she says. Nobody says a word. "We need help. We need all the help we can get. We are not enough."

A murmur of disagreement ripples through the assembled hunters.

 

"You don't know that," says someone from the back of the room.

 

She turns cold, hard eyes on the place where the voice came from. "Yes," she says coolly. "I do. We need all the help we can get. Call your friends, call every other hunter you know. Tell them that if we don't bring this thing down, there'll be no more hunting because the monsters will be all that's left. Tomorrow, we'll be sending emissaries to the Voodoo queen."

 

Uproar. The air is thick with shouting, with anger and fear. Emilie stands in the eye of the storm, unflinching, and waits for the noise to ebb away.

 

"If you have a problem," she says calmly. "You can leave."

 

No one moves.

 

"If any one of you lays a hand on her or any of her girls, expect it to be the last thing you ever do."

 

"Is that a threat?"

 

"Just a warning," says Emilie coolly, arching one eyebrow.

 

The muttering slowly burns itself out, dwindling to a very strained silence. Gerard glances automatically over at Mikey. He's seen enough bar fights in his time to know that this is when they start. The atmosphere is ugly, and at the first sniff of trouble, he's grabbing Mikey by the scruff of his neck and hauling him out to the car.

 

"Drinks!" cries Amanda, breaking the silence. "Drinks are on the house tonight. We've got a lot of booze to get rid of before the end of the world, what are you all waiting for?"

 

The tension eases, and the chatter and laughter start up again as people start to make their way over to the bar.

 

"Well done," Gerard says in an undertone to Amanda. "That was about to go south."

 

"Tell me about it," she says darkly, already pulling  bottles of beer and pushing them into the midst of a crush of eager hands. "It's amazing what a couple of free drinks can do."

 

Gerard grins. "Don't know if I'm one to judge. Catch you later, yeah?"

 

Amanda waves him away with a wry smile, and he makes his way through the hunters milling around to where Mikey is talking to Pete, their heads bent close together. As he watches, Mikey wraps his arm protectively around Pete's hunched shoulders and Pete visibly relaxes, leaning into the touch. Gerard hesitates. Mikey isn't given to physical displays of affection, and this is looking more and more like something he really, really does not want to get in the middle of. Then he catches sight of Patrick's stricken face, and he makes up his mind.

 

He swerves away, not caring where he's going, and walks straight into Adam, evidently en route to the jukebox.

 

"Gerard," he says loudly, raising his voice over the increasingly rowdy hunters. "Where you going?"

 

"Anywhere but over there," he says, tilting his head to indicate Pete, Patrick and Mikey. Adam follows his nod and grimaces.

 

"I see," he says. "I'm going to the bar, you want anything?"

 

Fuck it, Gerard thinks. Amanda was right. The end is nigh and he might as well get fucked up while the drinks are on someone else. "A double whiskey on the rocks," he half-shouts, and Adam slaps him on the back.

 

"That's my boy," he says. "I'll be right back." So saying, he elbows his way into the densest part of the crowd and vanishes.

 

The party gets going remarkably quickly, building up steam and getting louder and louder as evening turns to hot, sticky night. Gerard is several drinks in, comfortably buzzed, wrapped in a warm, honey-colored cocoon. He dips in and out of conversations; with Ray and Janelle, with Emilie, with Adam and Sarah, with Amanda, and he's just wondering where Frank is when a hot hand grabs his and pulls him free of the mêlée, up into the quiet stairwell.

 

"Speak of the devil," he says to no one in particular at the sight of Frank's heavily tattooed arm, ratty t-shirt and unwashed hair, and sniggers to himself. That was a good one. Not all his drunk jokes are so intelligent and multi-layered.

 

"Frank, hey," he says. "What are you doing? What's up?"

 

They've reached the top of the stairs, and Franks spins around unsteadily, pinning Gerard against the wall. He's flushed, panting slightly, his hair tousled.

 

"Hey," he whispers. He's drunk, Gerard realizes. Not truly wasted, but clearly on his way there. "You wanna?"

 

"Wanna what?" Gerard murmurs, although from the way Frank's body is pressed against his own, the answer is pretty obvious.

 

"Please," Frank says urgently, "C'mon, Gerard, I just need..." he trails off, rubbing up against Gerard like a cat in heat. Gerard isn't sure, something about this feels wrong, but Frank is as sober as he ever gets these days and god, his body is warm and close and Gerard's own body is responding in kind.

 

"Yeah," he says shakily, his hands skimming up Frank's sides. "Fuck. Yeah, okay."

 

Frank has to push himself up onto his toes, grabbing Gerard's hair and kissing him hard. Gerard knows they've done this before, but they were both so wasted that this feels like the first time. Suddenly, Gerard realizes that he wants this, wants it like he hasn't wanted sex in a long time. He usually just picks up people to fuck out of habit, taking care of it like he'd take care of the urge to eat or sleep. But now, with Frank's hands all over him and Frank's hard-on pressed against his thigh, he feels something he thought he'd turned his back on a long time ago.

 

"Let's-- ah, fuck," he gasps, as Frank bites hungrily at his neck, taking him by surprise and sending electric shivers down his spine. "Come on, let's find a bed."

 

Frank makes a disgruntled noise. "Fine," he says. "I guess it's better than a bathroom stall." He grabs Gerard by the hand and drags him down the hallway to the room where he sleeps, slamming the door shut behind them and shoving Gerard back against it. He pauses for a moment, looking up into Gerard's face, breathing hard.

 

"Jesus," Gerard says. This time, he pushes back, and Frank's eyes go dark as he falls back onto the bed. He stumbles over, going down hard on top of Frank, whose sharp intake of breath goes straight to Gerard's dick. He gets one hand in Frank's hair and tugs, pulling his head back, and Frank lets out a low, throaty moan.

 

"You like that?" Gerard asks, his own voice coming out rough and dirty, and Frank nods frantically.

 

"Yeah," he says breathlessly. "I--yeah."

 

His chest is rising and falling quickly, his mouth wet and open, and Gerard gets it. Frank wants it to hurt. Before Gerard can decide what to make of this (beyond the fact that it makes his stomach curl deliciously) Frank is pulling him close again, kissing him greedily, working his way between Gerard's thighs and palming him through his jeans.

 

"Oh, _shit_ , Frank," Gerard groans. The friction is delicious and heat is blossoming in his gut. Frank laughs, low and breathless, exhilarated.

 

It's good, but it's not enough. Gerard unzips his own jeans and works them down over his thighs, kicking them off and starting on Frank's while Frank starts pulling at Gerard's shirt. This time they both end up giggling like idiots, tangled up in each other's clothes.

 

"Hold on," Gerard grunts, feeling Frank's hands shaking with laughter. He pushes himself up so that he's kneeling over Frank, straddling Frank's hips and pulls his shirt over his head. He drops it to the floor with jeans, then looks back at Frank is gazing up at him, at the pale expanse of his skin and its battle scars, his eyes as dark as winter, biting his lip. Gerard's breath hitches slightly. He'd almost forgotten how heady it is to feel wanted like this. He suddenly feels very exposed, and it adds another layer to the adrenaline trickling brightly through him.

 

"Your turn," he says softly, leaning down to peel Frank's stained shirt away from his body. It's Gerard's turn to stare now, because, god, the tattoos. Frank is covered in them, his shoulders, his chest, his hips, down over his legs. Frank's body is so heavily decorated, in fact, that it takes Gerard a moment to see past them to the scars. Frank is covered in them, too, faded burns and puckered, pinkish lines where his skin has been split and stitched back together.

 

Frank can obviously see Gerard looking, and there's a defiant tilt to his chin. Gerard wants to tell him that he's gorgeous, every last goddamn inch of him, bruised and burned and inked and fixed up again and again like Frankenstein's monster, but words fail him. Instead, he kisses and bites his way up Frank's chest, relishing Frank's little gasps and twitches whenever Gerard's teeth graze his skin.

 

"What do you want?" Gerard murmurs, skimming his fingers down Frank's chest.

 

"You," Frank says roughly, dragging his nails down Gerard's back. "I wanna get fucked. I want you... in me."

 

As ridiculous as the words sound, Frank's steady gaze and quick, shallow breathing are doing things to Gerard. A bolt of heat goes straight to his cock, hot and heavy between his legs.

 

"Shit," he huffs, as Frank arches up underneath him. "Shit, okay. You got--?"

 

"Jeans," Frank says breathlessly. "Back pocket."

 

Gerard scrambles off the bed, feeling a little lightheaded. His face feels flushed and he's acutely aware of the kicking of his heart, beating a tattoo against his ribcage. He fumbles clumsily with Frank's recently discarded jeans, swearing under his breath. The fucking things are inside out, and it takes him what feels like several very long minutes to extract the little sachet of lube.

 

"Go it," he says. "Condom?"

 

Frank's snort is mirthless. "We're all dead men walking and you're worried about cooties? C'mon, you gonna fuck me or do I gotta do it myself?"

 

Gerard looks up to see Frank propped up on his elbow, jacking himself lazily, his eyes dark and hungry. His eyes don't leave Gerard's for an instant and, slowly, he slowly lets his legs fall open.

 

"Christ," Gerard mutters through a sharp intake of breath, clambering back onto the bed and settling himself between Frank's splayed thighs. "You're-- Jesus, you're fucking amazing." All the words he knows seem to have deserted him. He knows this dance, god knows he's done it enough times with enough willing strangers over the years, but this is different. He feels very exposed, in more ways than one, but it's been a long time since the sheer thrill of it hit him this hard.

 

Frank chuckles, low and soft. "Y'ain't seen nothing yet," he breathes.

 

Gerard reaches out, digs his nails into the soft skin of Frank's thigh. "Was that a challenge?" he says quietly.

 

Frank sucks in a short, sharp breath, and nods. Gerard doesn't need any more persuading. He tears open the little sachet in his hand, squeezing its cool, slippery contents out over his fingers. His hands are shaking. He looks up at Frank, at his tousled hair, the spots of color in his cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest, the runnels and dimples of his scars, his cock flushed and hard over his belly. Frank swallows, and Gerard watches his Adam's apple bob in his throat.

Gerard doesn't think he's ever wanted to fuck anyone so badly.

 

He slides one hand under Frank's leg, hitching it up over his shoulder, and drops his other hand down, ghosting his fingertips over Frank's entrance. Frank's cock twitches and he whines softly, the sound rattling down Gerard's spine.

 

"Wow," he murmurs. "You're really into that, huh?"

 

Frank nods again, more emphatically this time, shifting his hips and spreading his legs wider still. Gerard's poor, neglected cock is crying out to be touched, but he pauses to take in the glorious picture of Frank, spread wide and wanting. He eases one finger into Frank, who inhales sharply.

 

"Easy," Gerard murmurs, wrapping his free hand around Frank's cock and giving him a few slow, indulgent strokes.

 

"Mmph." Frank shakes his head, his flushed cheeks almost glowing in the half-light. "No," he says breathlessly. "It's-- ahh, shit, it's good. Carry on."

 

Gerard grins up at him and goes back to work, spreading Frank open as he gasps and whimpers.

 

"More," Frank groans, bearing down on Gerard's hand. "C'mon, what am I? A fucking virgin? Fucking... fuck me."

 

Gerard doesn't answer, just crooks his fingers so that Frank arches up with a startled, ecstatic noise.

 

"Shit," he chokes. "Oh, shit, that's it."

 

"Yeah?" Gerard does it again, just for the way Frank squirms and mewls. "Not going too slow for you, am I? Not being too _gentle_ with you?"

 

"Room for--oh, fuck--for improvement," Frank gasps, as Gerard adds another finger.

 

"We'll see about that," Gerard growls, letting go of Frank's dick and wrapping his fingers around his own instead.

 

"I guess we will," Frank shoots back immediately, looking pointedly at Gerard's cock and licking his lips. There's a self-satisfied look on his face, and Gerard aches to get rid of it. He adds another finger, just as he ducks his head and wraps his mouth around Frank's cock.

 

"Jesus fuck!" Frank shouts, startled, his hips bucking up. Gerard, who was expecting it, holds him down and takes him deeper. Gerard makes a low, muffled noise of satisfaction around Frank's dick. He loves this, he does, the weight and the taste of it, the way Frank is squirming, pinned between Gerard's fingers and his mouth.

 

Frank's shaking hands find their way into Gerard's tangled hair. "You're fucking incredible, you know that?" he says roughly. Gerard can't resist looking up, just for a glimpse of his wet, open mouth, his tapestry of scars and tattoos rippling as his chest rises and falls. "Nrgh, shit," he grunts, as Gerard laps at the very tip of his cock. "I mean it, Christ, Gerard, your mouth. Fuckin' made for sucking dick, I swear to god."

 

"Okay, enough," Gerard says, pulling off but leaving his fingers where they are. He gives Frank's thigh a playful slap with his free hand. "You're getting all sentimental on me, you wanna come before I've even fucked you?"

 

"Shit, no," he says, grinning and shifting his hips. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, looking down hungrily at Gerard. "I wanna... I wanna get fucked."

 

"You want it? You take it," Gerard pants, settling himself on his back. His own cock is flushed dark, almost painfully hard. "C'mon," he says. "Fuckin' ride me."

 

Frank lets out a long, shaky breath and clambers to his knees, settling them on either side of Gerard's hips. His eyes keep flicking greedily between Gerard's hot, hard cock and his wet, open mouth, and Gerard feels a delicious tingle of anticipation ripple over his bare skin. This is the calm before the storm and he doesn't know how much longer he can stand it.

 

Frank sticks his own fingers in his mouth for a moment, then drops his hand to wrap it around Gerard's cock. Gerard was expecting it, of course, but a startled moan still somehow slips out. Frank lines himself up, then glances down at Gerard, grinning.

 

"You ready?" he says softly, and Gerard wraps rests his hands on Frank's battle-scarred hips and swallows. He nods, just once.

 

"Do it," he says, and watches as Frank begins to sink down onto his cock. Frank's eyes flutter closed, his mouth falling open, his body gorgeously hot and tight.

 

"Shit," Frank breathes as he bottoms out, rolling his hips a little and sending jagged flares of pleasure through every inch of Gerard. "Oh, shit, that's good. Should have done this sooner."

 

"Yeah?" Gerard bucks his hips and Frank lets out a startled, choked noise.

 

"Fuck, yeah." Frank nods frantically,  his breath coming hard and fast as he starts to move, riding Gerard's cock. "You're--ahh--you feel so fuckin' big, Jesus..."

 

Gerard chuckles, low and throaty, rocking his hips up to meet Frank with every bounce. "Flattery will get you everywhere," he says breathlessly, and Frank grins. He lets his head fall back, giving Gerard a perfect view of the line of his throat, the sweat glistening on his patchwork skin.

 

Frank wraps his fingers around his cock, jacking himself off as he rides Gerard harder and faster. He's not holding back anymore, and Gerard's nails are digging into his hips, leaving crescent-moon marks. Frank's hair falls over his face, and he braces his other hand on the sheets.

 

"You like that? How d'you feel, huh?" Gerard pants, and Frank lets out a low moan as he pushes himself back up, his thighs trembling.

 

"Fuckin'--" Frank groans, dropping down again and taking every inch of Gerard. "Shit, so good, so fucking full..."

 

Gerard drives up into him, hard, and Frank makes a noise that's somewhere between a cry and a shout.

 

"Yeah," he says breathlessly, "C'mon, just like that. Oh, Christ, fuck, that's it! Fucking love your cock, love it when you--ahh, _shit_."

 

Gerard's eyes flicker between Frank's hot, wet mouth spilling its litany of filth and Frank's body swallowing his cock; he doesn't know which one is turning him on more.

 

"Your mouth," he grunts. "Bet you're a good fucking cocksucker."

 

Frank's laugh is hoarse and ragged, exhilarated. "Make me come and maybe you'll get to find out sometime."

 

"Was that a challenge?" Gerard asks innocently, punctuating the last word with a long, deep thrust, wanting Frank to feel every inch of him. This time, Frank's chuckle quickly becomes a moan, and he whimpers, his hand faltering on his cock. He's close, Gerard can tell, and he sinks back into Frank, fucking him harder than ever. Frank gasps, his moans resolving into a torrent of curses, his rhythm stuttering.

 

"That's it," Gerard grits out, his voice coming out as a guttural growl. "Come on, Frank, fuckin' come for me."

 

"Fuck you," Frank chokes. He pushes himself down one last time, then this whole body tightens and he's coming in ribbons over Gerard's stomach. The delicious feeling of Frank constricting around him is enough to push Gerard over the edge too, and he comes hard, buried deep inside Frank. They ride the aftershocks out together, Frank rolling his hips lazily as they both gasp and pant for breath.

 

Frank levers himself up and off Gerard, grimacing as Gerard's softening cock slips out of him, and flops down on his back. He leaves a careful inch of space between them, and stares determinedly at the ceiling, not saying a word. It's fucking weird, and it's killing Gerard's buzz. It's as if Frank is already trying to forget what they just did, with his chest still heaving and Gerard's come seeping out of him.

 

Gerard shrugs to himself. Frank's weirdo issues with sex aren't his problem. He doesn't take it personally. Frank doesn't strike him as the type, but maybe it's a gay thing. Gerard's fucked enough dudes who had trouble admitting they enjoyed having a cock in their asses. The silence swells like a soap bubble, faint sounds of music and laughter and raised voices filtering up through the floorboards.

 

Then -

 

"Sorry," Frank says, eventually, in a very small voice. His eyes are still fixed on the ceiling.

 

Gerard looks over at him, mystified. The cold shoulder at least he understands, the apology has him stumped. "Eh?"

 

Frank lets out a long, shuddering breath, and rubs his eyes. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I wasn't... I shouldn't have."

 

"The fuck are you talking about?" Gerard yawns. His brain feels slow and sluggish, almost as if he's been drugged.

 

"I wanted... I wanted not to have to think," Frank says, his voice cracking. "I wanted to feel something and you were there and I just..."

 

"Doesn't bother me," says Gerard, stretching. "Did you hear me complaining?"

 

Frank snorts. "No," he admits, and silence falls again. Gerard studies him, the line of his profile cut out against the dim light. There's more to this, he can tell. To his surprise, he realizes that he wants to hear it. Against his better judgment, he likes Frank. Of course, that could just be Gerard's dick talking, but he's fairly sure it's more than that. The guy's a train wreck, sure, but Gerard finds that he wants to get to know him. And that's a rare thing.

 

"I'm, uh," says Frank, with a shaky, unconvincing little laugh, derailing Gerard's rambling train of thought. "I'm not doing so good."

 

"I'd noticed," Gerard says, making a conscious effort not to sound either patronizing or overly solicitous. He has a funny feeling that neither approach would go over well.

 

Frank snorts, grinding his hands into his eyes. "I haven't been okay since... since the fire, I guess. I lost my whole crew, my friends, my family. You know how it is, when you're on the road and the people you're with are the only constant you've got. You can't help it, you love 'em. You know?"

 

"Uh huh." Gerard doesn't dare to say any more than that. His heart is in his mouth as it is; he knows he doesn't want to hear this but he can hardly believe that Frank is talking to him and he's terrified that the spell might break and Frank will revert to being Fort fucking Knox. Tentatively, he reaches out and lays one hand on Frank's shoulder, rubbing gentle circles

with his fingers and his palm.

 

"And I heard them die," Frank says tonelessly, staring unseeingly at the wall. "Horribly. Slowly. I could smell the burning flesh and hair and I heard them all stop screaming, one by one." He draws a deep, shuddering breath. Gerard wonders if Frank has ever talked about this with anyone before tonight. Almost certainly not, judging by the way the words are tumbling out of him like water from a broken dam. "They were--they were mine. They were mine to look after and they trusted me and I led them all into that slaughterhouse to die."

 

A long, long pause. Gerard counts the seconds as they tick by. Eighteen, nineteen. Twenty-seven. He wonders if he should say something. But what would he say? This is horror beyond anything even he himself has ever had to bear, and he can't think of one word of comfort that won't sound hollow and insincere. There's a lump in his throat, he realizes, and he chokes it back down.

 

"But Leathermouth was..." Frank exhales shakily and passes one hand over his face, struggling to get the words out. "We were so fucking _angry_ , all of us, all the time. We were still, you know, on the side of the angels, we were still protecting people - we thought so, anyway - but some of the shit we did..." he shakes his head, hollow-eyed. "If I believed in that karma bullshit I'd think that was why--" his voice cracks, but he carries on. "--That was why they died like that. But if that's true then I should have been with them, I was just as bad. Maybe worse, I don't know."

 

Gerard's mouth is dry. He opens it, not quite knowing what it is he should say, but the words don't come. Okay, so he'd tried not to think about it any more than he really had to, but he'd never quite forgotten the rumors about Leathermouth, about the things they did. Hunters didn't talk about it. No more than they had to, anyway. "But you... you regret it now?" Gerard manages.

 

Frank nods jerkily. "I never thought about what we were doing," he says hoarsely. "I think I knew it wasn't right, you know? On some level. I think that's why I tried not to think about it. But now..." he trails off, shaking his head, and the silence yawns again. "I thought I'd get better," Frank says, eventually. "'Cause that's what you do, right? You pull a hell of a bender, fuck yourself up until it doesn't hurt anymore, spend a week getting over the hangover and then you get on with the job. So that's what I did. But it didn't help, it hurt just as much as it did the day it happened. Like there was this big, bloody hole right through the middle of me. So I tried again. And again."

 

"But it didn't work, did it?" Gerard says softly. His hand is still lying, forgotten, on Frank's shoulder. Frank shakes his head, stifling a dry, hacking sob.

 

"No. I thought... I thought it would hurt less. I tried going back to the job, but that just made it worse. Remembering the way it used to be, you know? Like their ghosts were walking with me everywhere I went. I tried to shake 'em off, tried everything I could think of. I'd be trying to hunt with a fifth of bourbon in me. Nearly got myself killed about a hundred times over, but by then I didn't really give a shit anymore. I wanted to die. The only thing stopping me putting a bullet in my brain in some motel room somewhere was the thought if I was gonna go, at least I could take a few monsters down with me. Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

 

Gerard shakes his head mutely, then stops as he remembers. "No," he says. "But I did get someone killed. I didn't... I didn't know it at the time, but." He finds, almost to his surprise, that he's too choked up to finish his sentence.

 

"Yeah?" Frank says softly, looking over. "Someone you cared about?"

 

Gerard nods. It feels strange, talking about Bert like this. Hunters have been getting other hunters killed since man first walked the earth; they all accept it as an occupational hazard. But, as a general rule, they don't talk about it. Ever. "Yeah," he says. "My brother, Mikey, sent them into the vamp nest. And this, this... old friend of mine, he never came out."

 

Frank props himself up on one elbow, frowning. "How do you figure that was your fault?"

 

Gerard stares fixedly up at the watermarked ceiling. "Vamps," he says, shame rising in his throat. "I watched one kill my mom and dad. Tore them both apart right in front of me and left me alive. I can't..." he trails off, tears of humiliation prickling in his eyes.

 

Frank doesn't say a word, just closes the gap between them and lays one rough, callused hand and on Gerard's shoulder.

 

Distantly, Gerard realizes that his mouth is dry and his cheeks are wet. The silence stretches like chewing gum, thinner and thinner until Gerard can't bear it anymore.

 

"Stay with us," Gerard says suddenly, still punch-drunk and reeling. He curls a strand of Frank's unkempt hair around his finger. "Me and Mikey. Once all this is over, I mean. We've got room in the car for you. What d'you think?"

 

Frank freezes, tensing like a deer sensing a nearby wolf. Gerard doesn't think he's even breathing.

 

"Stay with you," he repeats, as if making sure he's heard right. "Travel. Hunt. Fuck. All that?"

 

"Yeah," Gerard says quietly. "If... if you want."

 

Frank lets out a slow breath. "I don't know, Gerard," he says, so softly that Gerard has to strain to make out his words. "I'm not--I'm not good on my own, you know? But hooking up with you guys, that's..."

 

"Shhhh." Gerard scratches the nape of Frank's neck, his blunt nails rasping against the delicate skin. "I know. You don't have to decide right now. Just... think about it, yeah?"

 

"Yeah," Frank murmurs. "Yeah, okay."

 

 

*

 

 

"Hey. What's the deal with you and the pint-sized psycho?" Mikey says the following morning, eyeing Gerard shrewdly. They're sitting at the bar, inhaling two enormous cups of coffee while the blazing sun outside hammers away at their hangovers.

 

Gerard starts guiltily. "Who, me?" he says.

 

Mikey rolls his eyes so hard Gerard wonders abstractedly if it's possible to dislocate one's eyeballs. It would serve Mikey right, the smug little asshole. "Yes," he says, in the tone of voice he usually reserves for explaining very simple things to very stupid people. "You, my brother, and Frank, ex-Leathermouth trainwreck and violent basket case."

 

"I think basket case is kind of harsh," Gerard says, trying to keep his own voice light and casual. "He's not so bad, once--"

 

"So help me, if you say once you get to know him, I am going to staple a steak to your face and throw you to the first alligator I see." He scrutinizes Gerard for a long moment, then groans. "Oh no. Oh my god, no. Please tell me you're not fucking."

 

Gerard stares back at him defiantly, but he can feel the color rising in his cheeks. "So what? It was just--"

 

"Stop. Already more than I needed to know, thanks." Mikey wrinkles his nose in an expression of profound disgust. He looks long and hard at Gerard, then sighs. "Look," he says. "Frank's not a bad guy. I don't get that vibe off him. But he's dangerous, Gee," he says, pleadingly. "You must know that. He'll fuck up everything he touches. He won't even mean to do it, but... I don't what that to be you, you know?"

 

"I know," Gerard says, softening. "I know he's fucked up. I'm being very careful, I promise. It was just a... spur of the moment arrangement. Don't worry about me." He slings one arm around Mikey's boney shoulders. He doesn't blame Mikey; he'd have done exactly the same in Mikey's shoes.

 

Which, speaking of.

 

"What about you, huh?" he says. "You and Pete. I saw you two last night." He decides not to say anything about the look he saw on Patrick's face.

 

"It's not." Mikey says. The words sound clipped, awkward in his mouth. "You know I don't--it's not like that."

 

Gerard raises his eyebrows. "Hey, I know that," he says. He puts his hand on Mikey's shoulder. "I wasn't _accusing_ you or anything. And you know I wouldn't have a problem even if you were into him."

 

One corner of Mikey's mouth twitches. "I know." He goes quiet again, a slight frown creasing his forehead. Gerard recognizes the signs,  that's the look Mikey gets when the creature he is falls short of the creature he pretends to be and he's struggling to fit them together. Sometimes, he struggles with human things.

 

"Take your time," Gerard says softly, giving his shoulder a squeeze. Mikey nods, just once, and thinks for a little while longer.

 

"He's got all this shit in his head," Mikey says eventually, "But it's not like my stuff, it's not meant to be there. He wasn't... built to contain it, you know? And I try to imagine how that would feel, and I just..." he trails off, and shakes his head. "I mean, I probably have a better idea than most people. Pete's... really, really not okay."

 

Gerard grins. "We sure know how to pick 'em, huh?"

 

"Tell me about it."

 

There's a long silence, but it's easy, neither of them struggling to fill it.

 

"Frank still has nightmares about losing his crew," says Gerard quietly. "This tough guy shit, it's a front. He's about halfway through a slow, expensive suicide. "

 

"Jesus," Mikey says, bleakly. "That's.... wow."

 

"Yeah."

 

There's a brief silence, then - "Pete knows what I am," says Mikey, and Gerard chokes on his coffee. Mikey thumps him helpfully on the back until he can breathe again.

 

"He _what?_ " Gerard wheezes, his eyes watering.

 

"Well, he doesn't know, you know, _exactly_ ," Mikey murmurs, glancing furtively over his shoulder. "But he can tell I'm different. He can feel it."

 

"No one's feeling my baby brother," Gerard growls. "You think he's gonna tell?"

 

Mikey snorts. "Hardly. I'm not exactly his top priority right now. No need to break out your they'll-never-find-your-body speech."

 

Gerard huffs, unconvinced. "Fine," he says. "If you're sure. But you tell me if he starts making trouble, okay?"

 

Mercifully, at that moment, Emilie emerges from the back room and makes a beeline for them.

 

"I'm glad you're up," she says briskly, ignoring the dark looks she's attracting from some of the other hunters dotted around the room. "Finish your coffee, you're coming with me."

 

"Oh?" says Gerard, who got rather more sleep than Mikey and is therefore slightly more compos mentis. "Where?"

 

"To a little business meeting," she says, taking the bar stool next to Mikey. "There's an... acquaintance of mine who owns a store in town, he sells incenses and herbs and things. He deals with the Voodoo queen as well as the tourists. He's going to be our middleman."

 

Mikey frowns, draining his mug and putting it back down on the bar top. "Why do we need a middleman? Why can't we just go straight to the queen?"

 

"Because, _boy_ ," says Emilie crisply, "Last month some Christian fundamentalists tried to burn down their headquarters, so they're ever so slightly jumpy about unannounced visitors at the moment. And I quite like all my internal organs where they are, thank you very much. Anyway, it's just good manners. That's how it works. You don't just go breaking down the front door, you request an audience."

 

"Wow," Gerard says, eyebrows raised. "Okay, point taken. But why d'you need us to go with you?"

 

"Oh," Emilie says airily, getting to her feet again. "I just think you'll make a better impression than some of these other idiots, that's all. Congratulations, you're the new spokesmen for hunters everywhere. You've got ten minutes, then we're leaving. Better get your skates on, boys."

 

The day is hot, even though it's still early, the sky clear and cloudless. A mushroom cloud of heat blossoms over New Orleans as Emilie leads them unerringly through a labyrinth of narrow streets, her pale hair and paler skin glowing incandescently in the sunlight. She guides them to the open doors of a small store, where potted plants and strange little bits of statuary and the heady scent of incense are spilling out into the street. Gerard can hear music playing somewhere inside, something slow and lazy with a thudding, undulating bassline.

 

"This is the place," says Emilie unnecessarily. "Follow me." She saunters through the door, setting a little bell jingling. Picking their way carefully through the profusion of clutter, Gerard and Mikey trail doubtfully in her wake.

 

"Girl." The voice comes from the very back of the store, from the heart of a cloud of smoke. "It's been a long time."

 

"Good morning, Travis," Emilie says urbanely, navigating easily around and between the crowded shelves. Gerard looks around him, unable to believe that so much stuff even fits into such a small room. He can see candles and books and bunches of dried herbs suspended from the ceiling, jars and bottles and packets of things glinting in the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

 

"What can I do for you?" purrs the voice called Travis, and the smoke around him shifts to reveal a young guy with dark, sleepy eyes, a glowing smile, a colorful selection of tattoos on dusky skin. Gerard quickly squashes the part of him that's taking such a keen interest in these details. Now is not the time.

 

"A favor," says Emilie, moving over to stand in front of the antique cash register and placing her hands on the chipped counter. "We need you to get us a meeting with the queen."

 

Travis leans back and sucks air between his teeth. "I don't know, girl," he says. "After those Christian whack jobs she's not really seeing anybody, you know?"

 

Girl, Gerard notes. That's the second time he's addressed Emilie as such, and yet he still seems to have all his limbs. Gerard wonders how long Emilie and Travis have known each other.

 

"If anyone can talk her round, it's you," Emilie says, in deceptively sweet tones that nonetheless brook absolutely no argument. "Come on. I have faith in you."

 

He tips his chair back again, quite obviously unconvinced. For one horrible moment, he reminds Gerard strongly of Gabe. He shudders.

 

"Hmm," he says. "Who are your friends here? Didn't think you had any."

 

"You're quite right, they're not my friends," Emilie says breezily. "Travis, Gerard and Mikey Way. Hunters."

 

"Hunters?" Travis raises an eyebrow dubiously, looking the pair of them up and down. "Okay."

After shooting Gerard a warning look, Emilie moves a heavy book off a chair in front of the counter and sits down, gesturing for Gerard and Mikey to do the same.

 

"We need to speak to the queen," Emilie says, eyeing Travis levelly.

 

Travis shrugs, his on eyes resting on the Ways. "Nothing doin'," he says. "Sorry, girl."

 

Emilie, apparently quite unperturbed, smiles. "We both know that's not true," she says. "And the sooner you set things up for us, the sooner we can get out of your hair."

 

Travis shrugs, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the counter. "Doesn't matter to me," he says. "I'm here all day. Got nothing better to do."

 

"Please, Travis. It's important."

 

"You know how I just said I couldn't help you? Yeah, that's still happening."

 

For the first time, a flicker of annoyance passes across Emilie's face, and she crosses her arms stubbornly. "Well, we're not going anywhere."

 

Travis shrugs again. "Whatever you want, girl. Although," he drawls, looking intently at Mikey. "I think she'd be interested in meeting this one."

 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gerard snaps, momentarily forgetting that Travis is not someone he should be antagonizing.

 

Travis chuckles. "I hate to break it to you, man, but your bro here ain't exactly human."

 

Gerard doesn't remember deciding to stand up, but he hears the jagged scrape of chair legs on the floor and the next thing he knows, he's on his feet, breathing hard, his blood thumping in his ears.

 

"Emilie," he says, in a strained, curt voice entirely unlike his own. "Outside, please."

 

Her expression carefully blank, Emilie rises gracefully from her chair and follows him out through the back door and into the alley beyond. He slams the door and turns to face her.

 

"You--you used him," Gerard hisses, his voice shaking with barely suppressed fury. "You lying bitch, you swore you wouldn't tell anyone."

 

"Oh? And who, exactly, did you hear me tell?" she retorts. "For heaven's sake, I know Travis. I trust him. The queen trusts him. Half of New Orleans trusts him. He's safe, he's not going to sell you out--"

 

"He doesn't need to, now you've saved him the trouble!"

 

"Oh, grow up, I didn't sell him to anyone. Changelings are a rarity, okay? He'll tell the queen, the queen will want to meet Mikey for herself, she'll grant us an audience. Don't you get it? This isn't one of your hunts, Gerard. Politics matter here. Brute force isn't going to work, unless you want to end up floating face down in the lake. Whether you like it or not, your brother is our key to the queen."

 

"Key?" splutters Gerard, outraged. "Key? You've set him up as bait! What happens when she fucking bites, huh?"

 

"Get your head out of the dark ages," she says coolly, raising an eyebrow, infuriatingly composed. "She's a Voodoo queen, not a succubus; he's not in any danger."

 

"And you'd bet your life on that, would you?" Gerard snarls, too enraged to see sense and in no mood to try. "Because that's what you've done, if one hair on his head gets hurt--"

 

"Yes, yes, you'll burn and butcher me. I'll take the death threats as read." She rolls her eyes. "Gerard," she says, more gently. "This is war. These people could be our allies. Right now, we can't afford to turn down help from anyone. Don't you understand?" she looks him squarely in the eye, unflinching, entreating him to think. "There's more at stake here than my life."

 

He snorts. He understands what she's saying, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. "You could have warned me," he mutters.

 

"Would you still have agreed to come if I had?"

 

Gerard hesitates for a split second. "Yes," he says stoutly.

 

"Bullshit," says Emilie calmly. "Don't lie to a psychic, Gerard, it makes you look like an idiot. Are you going to behave if we go back in now?"

 

He scowls. "Depends. What are you gonna do next, wheel in some tourists to look at him?"

 

"I haven't ruled it out," she says darkly. "Come on."

 

With that, she turns on her heel and marches back through the door, her head held high. Trailing in her wake, Gerard shakes his head. He isn't at all sure he likes her and even less sure that he trusts her, but from the position she's got him in, he doesn't see that he's got a lot of choice.

 

Teeth gritted, he follows her back inside. Mikey and Travis are both laughing, evidently halfway through a long, complicated handshake. Travis looks up at Emilie, still grinning.

 

"This one's alright," he says, tilting his chin at Mikey. "This one... I don't know."

 

Gerard bristles, but holds his tongue, Emilie's talking-to still ringing in his ears.

 

"Yes, I thought you'd get on," Emilie says, serenely, returning gracefully to her seat and leaving Gerard to make his own rather clumsier way back to his. "So." She turns a blinding smile on Travis. "Are you going to help us?"

 

Travis looks at Mikey. "Okay," he says. "But only 'cause I think she'd like to meet a--"

 

"Don't you dare," Gerard growls, and Travis rolls his eyes.

 

"Don't take it personally," Mikey advises him.

 

"--She'd like to meet your brother," Travis amends. "You owe me, Emilie. Big time."

   


*

  
 

Emilie leaves Gerard and Mikey to drive back to Maman Brigitte's without her, on the grounds that she had certain highly sensitive errands to run. Gerard had briefly considered asking what these might entail, but then he'd thought better of it. Probably nothing he wants to know about.

 

So he and Mikey clamber back into the car, Mikey riding shotgun while Gerard drives.

 

"What's up?" he says, casting a suspicious sidelong look at Mikey. Something's up. Mikey's silence has a particular cast to it that Gerard recognizes immediately.

 

"Nothin' much." Mikey shrugs, gazing idly out through the windshield at the sunlit city. "Just thinking, you know. Back there..." he trails off, letting out a frustrated huff of breath. Gerard doesn't take it personally. He knows Mikey isn't holding back on him, it's just that he sometimes struggles to put himself into words. "I'm lucky," he says, eventually.

 

Gerard looks over at him, raising an eyebrow. "This isn't exactly the American dream, Mikes."

 

"Fuck off, smartass. I just meant... I should be dead, like, fifty times over by now."

 

Gerard snorts. "Christ, you and me both. It's like the longest game of Russian Roulette ever."

 

"You're not listening to me."

 

"Do I ever?"

 

"Very funny. No, I meant... you know, without you. Watching my back."

 

"Oh." It catches Gerard off guard. They don't often talk about the unusual arrangement, the hunter protecting his prey. Gerard barely even thinks about it, not these days. Looking after Mikey and shielding him from other hunters who don't understand him is automatic, as much a part of Gerard as the wet percussion of the blood in his veins. It's just something he does.

 

He shoots Mikey a crooked smile. "That's what I'm here for," he says.

 

 

*

 

 

"Front and center, Mikey Way," Emilie says briskly, striding in from the back room the next morning. "You're wanted."

 

Mikey tears himself away from the game of poker he's playing with Patrick, Adam and Sarah to look up at Emilie. "What for?"

 

"Brunch," she says, grabbing Amanda's sunglasses from the top of her head and kissing her briefly on the cheek.

 

"You're asking me out for _brunch?_ " Mikey's forehead creases with confusion. "I don't--"

 

"With the Voodoo queen," she says, throwing a sparkling shawl around her shoulders and standing, hands on hips, looking down at him sternly.

 

"Oh. Yeah, okay," he says, his expression clearing. He puts down his cards, and Adam looks over them with interest then shakes his head, tutting.

 

"You're a lucky man, Michael," he says. "That's the worst fuckin' hand I've ever seen."

 

"Charmed life, I guess," Mikey shoots back, smirking at him.

 

"Hold on, hold on," Gerard interrupts, dropping the newspaper he'd been trying to read. "What about me?"

 

"She doesn't want to see you," Emilie says, not unkindly. "You can stay here."

 

"I don't think so," Gerard says darkly, getting up from his seat and folding his arms over his chest. "He's going, I'm going."

 

Emilie heaves a put-upon sigh. "Fine," she says. "I don't care, but come _on_. We don't have time for this, and she doesn't appreciate lateness."

 

Gerard allows himself to be herded outside to the car, where Emilie takes the passenger seat and Mikey gets behind the wheel, leaving Gerard to clamber into the back. He catches sight of his own reflection in the rear view mirror, which looks back at him with a decidedly petulant expression. On one hand, while he still isn't at all happy with the way Emilie is using Mikey as bait to get the queen's attention, he has to admit that it seems to be working. And, what with the way things are shaping up, they really can't afford to pass up her goodwill. On the other hand, he's getting terrible déjà vu. This is exactly how he felt when they were driving through the desert, looking for Gabe. What if the queen has Gabe's magpie spirit, the urge to collect unusual, interesting people like exotic curios? Gabe might be unpredictable and creepy as all get out, but he's only human. A Voodoo queen is an entirely different matter. Experience has taught Gerard that Voodoo is not something to be taken lightly.

 

"Stop it," says Mikey severely from the front seat, not taking his eyes off the road. "I can hear you thinking and it's driving me insane. You're gonna give me an ulcer."

 

Gerard gives him a halfhearted, sheepish smile in the mirror. "Sorry," he says. "Emilie, what's this... queen like? We don't know anything about her."

 

Emilie seems to be choosing her words very carefully. "She's a very reasonable woman," she says eventually. "But I wouldn't cross her."

 

Gerard can almost hear Mikey raising his eyebrows. " _You_ wouldn't cross her?"

 

"Not in a million years. She'd crush you two like bugs."

 

Emilie takes them to a pretty café in the French quarter, with little wrought iron tables spilling out into the street under a striped awning.

 

"Get behind me," she mutters, "And speak when you're spoken to. Understand?"

 

Gerard and Mikey make noises of assent and fall into line behind her. She threads her way between the tables, heading for one right in the middle where a lone woman sits waiting for them. Emilie draws near, then stops, bobbing her head respectfully.

 

"Your majesty," she murmurs. She doesn't move to take a seat.

 

"Emilie," says the Voodoo queen of New Orleans, in a voice like honey. "It's been a long time. Sit down."

 

Emilie pulls out the chair next to the queen and sits down, gesturing with a tilt of her chin for Gerard to sit opposite her and leaving the spot directly across the table from the queen for Mikey. He cottons on immediately, realizing that she wants to keep Mikey - the ace in their hand - as visible as possible. He takes his seat, an odd, fluttering sensation in his gut, and looks upon the queen.

 

His first thought is that Emilie was right to caution them against crossing her. She radiates power, pure and unadulterated, her dark skin positively glowing with it. He can feel it like an electric charge in the air, the magnetic pull of her. It almost looks as if the air itself is rippling slightly around her, like a heat haze. She sits perfectly upright, her shimmering golden sundress casting spangles of reflected light over her neck, her bare arms, her shoulders. Her eyes are huge and dark and sleepy, but they blaze with a fierce intelligence and when she turns them on Gerard he feels as if she's looking through him.

 

Much to his surprise, he finds himself quite tongue-tied.

 

"Queen B," Emilie says. "May I present Gerard and Mikey Way, hunters."

 

The queen bestows a regal nod on Gerard, then turns her eyes on Mikey.

 

"A monster who hunts monsters," she says. "Unusual."

 

"He's not--" Gerard starts, heatedly, then remembers himself. "I wouldn't call him a monster," he says, in a more restrained tone. "Uh. With all due respect."

 

As pretty and well-groomed as she is, Gerard has absolutely no trouble believing that this woman is up to her elbows in blood magic.

 

"And you," she says, focusing her attention on Gerard instead. He feels like an ant under a magnifying glass. Her eyes are bright with interest and curiosity. "You protect him? Look out for him, shield him from other hunters?"

 

"Yes," Gerard says staunchly. He's not altogether sure how to address her - ma'am? Your majesty? "He's my brother, he'd do the same for me. It'd be the same even if he wasn't... how he is."

Mikey flashes him a look that says, quite clearly, you massive fucking loser.

 

"Very sweet," she says, but at that moment, they're interrupted by a waiter bearing a tray.

 

"Blood orange juice," he says, putting down a tall glass in front of the queen, "An earl grey tea..." Emilie, of course, "And two coffees." He places one gently steaming mug in front of Mikey and the other in front of Gerard.

 

"Sorry, these aren't ours," Gerard says, pushing his back towards the waiter.

 

He frowns, consulting the pad in his shirt pocket. "One earl grey tea--"

 

"Mine," Emilie says, sipping delicately at it.

 

"--And two coffees, one with milk and sugar, one with neither. Didn't you order them?"

 

"No, we..." then Gerard clocks the look Emilie is giving him and cottons on. "...did. I, uh, forgot. Thanks."

Whoever set it up clearly did their homework, he thinks, as the waiter leaves their table. Mikey is already drinking his with a look of deep satisfaction on his face, which means it has exactly the right amount of sugar in it - i.e. at least five times too much.

 

"So," says the queen, with a smile that's more than slightly dangerous. "What can you do, Michael? Abilities? Powers?"

 

"Nothing much," Mikey says. His voice is level, his face polite but impassive, and pride wells up in Gerard. Even with both the queen and Emilie watching him like hawks, his poker face is faultless. "I just... know things, sometimes. Enhanced intuition, I guess."

 

"You're a Medium?" says the queen, taking a long sip of her drink.

 

Mikey shakes his head ruefully. "I wish, that'd be great. No, it's not that strong."

 

"I see." The queen looks slightly disappointed. "No gift of prophecy?"

 

Mikey shakes his head.

 

"Nothing else? No... affinity with other supernaturals?"

 

Gerard glances surreptitiously over his shoulder. There's no one else listening, but he does feel uncomfortably exposed out here. The sooner they get out of here, the better.

 

"Nothing," says Mikey. He isn't flat-out lying, but he's also not being entirely truthful. Gerard doesn't think it could really be called an affinity, but Mikey does have a strange gift for thinking his way into non-human minds.

 

"Fascinating." Queen B's eyes are sparkling in a way that Gerard does not like one bit. "How did Mikey come to be a part of your little... family?"

 

Gerard hesitates. He's never spoken of this to anyone but Mikey before and the words take a moment to come. "The... first Mikey was premature," he says, at last, very quietly. "He was real sick. Almost stillborn, but he was good enough for them. Our mom--" he sees Mikey twitch slightly at his use of the word our, but he ploughs on regardless. She was Mikey's mom too, no matter what Mikey thinks sometimes. She was the one who kissed his scraped knees better and cut the crusts off his sandwiches and taught him to fire a gun; that's good enough for Gerard. "--Our mom saw it happen. She was too weak to stop it and our dad wasn't there. They took this... this dying baby and left Mikey in its place."

 

"And you never wondered what the real Mikey could have been?" asks Queen B. She sounds genuinely curious, but Gerard bristles.

 

"This is the real Mikey," he growls. "I don't care what he is, there's no one I'd rather have by my side on a hunt."

 

Mikey's face softens momentarily into a smile. If Gerard has told him once he's told him a hundred times, but Mikey never seems to get tired of hearing it.

 

"But what about you?" Unfazed, Queen B turns the searing heat of her attention on Mikey. "Do you ever wonder?"

 

"No," he says indifferently. "I am what I am. Seems like a waste of time, you know?"

 

"Anyway, they... talked, our mom and dad," Gerard says, trying to steer the conversation away from Mikey. "And they decided that they couldn't do it. He was a baby. He didn't know what he was. And they thought he could be, uh--" he looks down at his coffee cup. "--Useful."

 

Queen B glances at Mikey for confirmation, and he nods.

 

"Hmmm. Well, thank you, Mikey," she says. She still looks as if she'd been expecting more, but she smiles beatifically. "You've been very helpful." She turns to Emilie, sipping demurely at her tea with her little finger sticking out, and Gerard breathes a sigh of relief. "Alright, Emilie. You didn't put all this together for my benefit. What was it you came to talk about?"

 

Emilie smiles sweetly, not attempting to deny it. It strikes Gerard that the two of them working together would be a force of nature. "I'm sure you've noticed that something's... not right."

 

"We're aware, yes."

 

"We need your help," Emilie says bluntly. "Without you, we don't have a chance of working out what it is. We have a... conduit, if you will."

 

"A conduit?" the queen raises one graceful eyebrow, toying with her glass.

 

"A Medium," Emilie says, and Gerard realizes that she's talking about Pete. He and Mikey exchange glances. "Or, well. He's got a direct line to something that's trying to push its way into this world. Incredible abilities. It's a shame, he's in a bad way. He's not able to make sense of much of it. But with your help, I think we could get somewhere." She finishes her speech and waits, quite calmly. Gerard has to admire her composure under pressure.

 

"Ahhh," says the queen softly. "You want a ritual performed. Now I get it."

 

"Yes," Emilie says, returning her gaze unflinchingly. "It's not just about us. We all need to know what's happening so we can start thinking about how to stop it."

 

 

*

 

 

That evening, back at Maman Brigitte's, Emilie shoos Gerard, Mikey and Patrick away so she can talk to Pete. Patrick flatly refuses to go anywhere, but Gerard and Mikey obediently leave their seats and make for the stairs.

 

"We could give them some privacy..." Mikey says, out of one corner of his mouth as they turn into the stairwell.

 

"...Or we could stay here and listen in," Gerard finishes. Mikey grins at him, and they both shuffle around on the bottom step until they're safely out of sight but still within earshot. 

 

"Hey, Pete," says Emilie, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. "How are you feeling?"

 

Pete laughs blackly. "Honestly? Like someone sucked my brains out through a straw and puked them back up into my skull."

 

"Move over," Gerard whispers. "I can't see."

 

Mikey rolls his eyes and rearranges himself so that Gerard can peer through the gap in the wooden slats.

 

Emilie makes a sympathetic noise and lays one hand on Pete's shoulder, rubbing her fingers in soothing circles. Patrick looks utterly miserable. Gerard feels for him almost as much as he feels for Pete. He knows a broken heart when he sees one, and he also knows the look of someone so wrapped up in tearing themselves to shreds that they wouldn't notice if the whole world was in love with them.

 

"I wanted to ask you something," Emilie says, not removing her hand from Pete's shoulder. "A favor."

 

He looks up at her with bleary, bruise-shadowed eyes. "Yeah?"

 

"Yeah. It's a big one, though."

 

"Your wish is my command," Pete intones, rubbing his eyes. "Maybe. I don't know. What is it?"

 

"We're going to see the Voodoo queen. We need her help, but if she says yes, she might need your help."

 

"So... you need me to help you help yourselves."

 

One corner of Emilie's mouth twitches. "Something like that. What do you think?"

 

Pete gives her a long, searching look. "You don't know what she's gonna ask me to do?"

 

"Not exactly," Emilie says. "I'm not the _mambo_ , Pete, I don't know exactly what she'll want from you, but she'll probably ask you to be the vessel for the loa she wants to speak to." She looks him squarely in the eye. "It might be dangerous."

 

Pete hesitates. "But it's important?"

 

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't."

 

Pete exhales shakily. "I know. I... yeah. Yeah, okay. I mean, I don't know if I'll be able to... do whatever it is, but I'll try."

 

"Thank you." She pats the back of his hand, favoring him with a blinding smile, and goes back behind the bar to help Amanda and Patrick unload the glasses from the dishwasher.

 

Unsteady footsteps sound on the stairs above Gerard and Mikey and they both whirl around to look, both trying (unsuccessfully) not to look guilty. Mikey's posture doesn't change, but Gerard relaxes. It's only Frank, and by the way he's stumbling and the strong smell of whiskey rolling out ahead of him, he's in no state to notice anything suspicious that Gerard and Mikey may or may not be doing. He jerks his head by way of a greeting, then weaves his way around to the bar and clambers clumsily onto the bar stool next to Pete. Gerard and Mikey exchange glances.

 

"This could go south real, real fast," Mikey mutters.

 

"Tell me about it." Gerard passes one hand over his eyes. "C'mon."

 

They follow Frank's lead and take the two neighboring bar stools, attempting to seem casual and unobtrusive.

 

"'S the matter with you?" Frank says to Pete, who's staring into his glass like a carnival psychic into a crystal ball.

 

Pete snorts. "Tomorrow night," he says, in a cracked, shaky voice that's either on the verge of unhinged laughter or desperate sobbing, "The Voodoo queen's gonna come. Here. She's gonna summon a loa--into... into me."

 

Frank frowns. Gerard can almost hear the cogs turning in his head. "Lemme get this straight. She's gonna summon this voodoo god--"

 

"Loa," Mikey corrects. Frank ignores him.

 

"--Into you?" Frank says. "So you'll be... possessed? Like you would be by a demon?"

 

"Ridden," Pete says tonelessly, still not looking up. "That's what it's called. You summon the loa and it... rides you."

 

"Shit," Frank says, after a long silence.

 

"Yeah," Pete agrees. "And I don't... I don't want it to be me. I don't think I'm... strong enough. But Emilie says it has to be me."

 

"Emilie?" Patrick says, through gritted teeth. Gerard can see a muscle jumping in his jaw and his hands are clenched so tightly that his knuckles are white. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

 

She sighs unhappily, resignation passing briefly across her face. "Of course," she says heavily. "Come on, we'll use the back room."

 

Patrick gets to his feet, the unnecessary force with which he shoves his stool backwards not quite dramatic enough to conceal his shaking hands. He stumbles after Emilie, and, as soon as they're out of sight and the door to the back room has closed behind them, they both leap from their seats and shove their way over to the door to listen in for the second time that night.

 

 _What are they saying?_ Mikey mouths, and Gerard,  with his ear pressed to the door, makes an impatient hushing gesture. Patrick's voice is brittle and taut, louder and harder than Gerard has ever heard it before, and for once, the low, gentle, placating tones are Emilie's.

 

"Emilie," says Patrick angrily, "You can't let them do this, it's going to kill him!"

 

Gerard and Mikey exchange glances. They've never seen Patrick so agitated, not once in all Pete's desperate struggles with the monsters in his head.

 

Emilie shrugs, helplessly. "You don't know that," she says, although she doesn't sound all too convinced. "I'm sorry, Patrick, but using Pete is the best shot we have at finding out what we're up against. Pete knows that."

 

"Pete doesn't know anything right now!" Patrick shouts, his fingers making fists in his wild hair. "Come on, Emilie! It's like he's--" Patrick's voice wobbles, almost cracks. "--not even there half the time, there's so much crazy shit in his head that there's no room left for him. I'm losing him," he says, more quietly, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. "And it scares me to death. I swore... I'm supposed to be looking after him and there's just nothing I can do against all this shit!"

 

Emilie softens, laying one hand on Patrick's shoulder. "I know," she says, unusually gently. "I know. But it has to be Pete, his eyes are clearer than any of ours when it comes to all this. And if we don't stop this, it isn't just Pete you're going to lose."

 

Patrick nods shakily. "Sorry," he says thickly, rubbing his eyes before pushing his glasses back up his nose. "I just... I don't know what I'd do if--"

 

"I know," says Emilie softly. "I've been inside your head, Patrick. I know. And believe me, if there was any other way, we wouldn't be doing this."

 

 

*

 

 

Queen B arrives the following evening in a chauffeur-driven car. Gerard, Mikey, Emilie, Pete and Patrick are all waiting for her, standing out on the front porch while Mikey swears under his breath and slaps at the mosquitoes that keep landing on his arms and Patrick talking in a low voice to an ashen-faced Pete. All five of them are sweating in the close, oppressive heat, the bloated clouds overhead threatening to burst at any moment.

 

The car pulls up, and a girl hops out of the driver's side. She looks like something out of an old black and white movie, all false eyelashes and knowing half-smile. Another girl, this one with short, untidy red hair, clambers out of the passenger seat and trots around to open the door. One more girl appears, this one tall and powerfully built and carrying a large suitcase, then the Voodoo queen of New Orleans herself. She emerges gracefully from the back seat, untouched by the heat and the bugs, and the three girls form a sort of guard of honor around her as she walks towards them.

 

"Queen B," Emilie says, inclining her head.

 

"Emilie." The queen's face is unusually solemn. She's quite clearly aware of how much is riding on this, their last, best hope. "My assistants," she says, gesturing to the girls behind her. "Veronica." The dark-haired girl who drove the car. "Maggie." The diminutive redhead. "And Contessa." The girl with the suitcase.

 

Gerard, Mikey, Pete and Patrick make their own slightly uncomfortable introductions, but Emilie seems to have no such compunctions. She flits forward, grinning, and kisses Veronica on the cheek. Mikey raises an eyebrow at Gerard, who shrugs. Veronica reminds him rather too much of Victoria Asher, and he has the impression that she too is someone he should try not to piss off.

 

"Come in," Emilie says, now arm in arm with Veronica, and she leads the way back up the front stairs and into the bar. The room isn't busy, with only ten or fifteen hunters dotted around the tables, but as soon as Emilie pushes open the door, silence falls like a guillotine blade. Every eye in the room turns on them, and it's not unlike being in the glare of a spotlight. The sudden, unnatural quiet presses in upon them like the gathering storm outside, the atmosphere horribly strained.

Queen B doesn't seem remotely ruffled by the stares or the silence, gliding across the floor towards the stairs without so much a glance at the hostile hunters surrounding them. Gerard has to hand it to her, she's got balls. Emilie and the three girls follow suit, heads held high, while Pete, Patrick, Gerard and Mikey sidle shiftily through in their wake, their heads down and their eyes firmly trained on the floorboards.

 

Emilie leads them up the stairs and along the hallway to one of the larger spare rooms. Earlier that morning, Gerard, Frank, Adam and Mikey cleared all the furniture out of it and rolled up the rug on the floor, all of them glad to have something to do.

 

"Friendly crowd," Veronica mutters to Emilie, and Gerard feels a misplaced twinge of embarrassment on behalf of his fellow hunters. He understands the thinking - namely that it's a slippery slope with magic users at one end and monsters at the other - but surely the impending catastrophe is serious enough for them to put aside their scruples?

 

"Tell me about it," Contessa agrees, hoisting the suitcase higher. It looks heavy. Gerard would offer to carry it, but he doesn't quite dare. "What gives?"

 

"Hunters," Mikey says, evidently having been thinking along similar lines.

 

"Their hearts are in the right place, most of the time," Gerard explains. "But they can be kind of... narrow minded. About, uh. Voodoo."

 

He neglects to mention that until recently he would have agreed with them, and Emilie glances at him approvingly. Contessa and Veronica exchange dark looks.

 

"In here," Emilie says, pushing open the door. They file inside, and Contessa puts down the suitcase and starts pulling things from inside. She hands a stick of white chalk to Queen B, who lowers herself gracefully onto her haunches and begins to draw a large, complex symbol on the bare floorboards.

 

"Maman Brigitte's veve," she explains, noticing Mikey's curious look. Nonplussed, Gerard raises an eyebrow at Mikey.

 

"Each loa has a veve," he says, as Queen B maps out a long, straight line and Veronica, Maggie and Contessa start setting out candles and incense. "It's a... like a symbol associated with the entity, used to summon them."

 

Gerard nods, trying valiantly to look as though this makes perfect sense to him (it doesn't). Mikey shoots him a sly, fond smile that informs Gerard he wasn't fooled for a moment, and Gerard smiles back sheepishly.

 

The symbol drawn, the queen returns to the suitcase and pulls out a heavy-looking brass bell. She waits for the last of the candles and incense to be lit, then turns to Pete.

 

"Don't be scared," she says. "Maman Brigitte doesn't want to hurt you."

 

Pete, ashen-faced, doesn't seem comforted by this.

 

"Just stand over here..." she takes him gently by the arm and leads him across to stand by the front wall. He stumbles clumsily behind her. "Try to stay still. Don't resist, okay?"

 

"I'll try," Pete croaks. He's standing still, yes, but so rigid with terror that he looks like a waxwork of himself.

 

"Pete," says Patrick desperately. "If you--"

 

"No," Pete says, his voice stronger now. "I don't... I have to." He glances up at Queen B. She's taller than him, her white dress glowing in the half-light. "I'm ready."

 

"Good." She turns back to look at the others, all huddled together by the door. "You can stay, if you want," she says. "But stay back, whatever happens. No matter what you see or hear. Understand? Maggie, Veronica, Contessa - as usual."

 

The three of them nod tersely, and move to stand behind their queen. Gerard, Mikey and Patrick shuffle backwards to give them space. Emilie's face is a mask of concentration as her eyes dart backwards and forwards between Pete and Queen B.

 

There's a long moment of silence, of stillness, then Queen B raises the bell and its sonorous ringing fills the room.

 

"The temple is open," she says, in a clear, commanding voice. She looks different, somehow, drawn up to her full height and summoning terrible forces to do her bidding. An involuntary shiver crawls down Gerard's spine.

 

She hands the bell to Maggie, who takes it without a word. "Before me is Raphael, behind me is Gabriel, on my right side is Michael and on my left side is Auriel," she intones. "For around me shines the pentagram and within me shines the six-rayed star." The air in the room seems to be rippling as she begins to chant, reminding Gerard vividly of the day he first set eyes on Pete.  He can feel _something_ , like a blast of hot air from an oven door, the very edges of some great force.

 

"Papa Legba!" she cries, her voice growing stronger with every word."Open the gate for me, _ago e! Atibon Legba_ ,open the gate for me! Open the gate for me, Papa, for me to pass. When I return, I will thank the loa."

 

Pete flinches as if someone has just walked over his grave, and Patrick twitches.

 

"Hey," Gerard murmurs, laying a hand on his arm, and he starts as if he'd forgotten Gerard was even there. "You okay?"

 

"No," he says miserably. "Would you be?"

 

Gerard doesn't have an answer for that.

 

Queen B is standing with her arms raised and her eyes closed, speaking in a ringing voice like the noise of a hammer on an anvil. "I summon and evoke thee, Maman Brigitte, to appear before me and answer my questions. I summon and evoke thee, Maman Brigitte, to appear before me and answer my questions."

 

The power radiating from her seems to crackle in the air, unfettered and primal. She sways as she chants, and then it starts to happen. Pete's head snaps back and his limbs begin to jerk spasmodically, his face a rictus of fear and pain.

 

"What's happening?" Gerard hisses to Emilie. "Has it gone wrong?"

 

Emilie ignores him, instead seizing Patrick's arm in a vice-like grip. "Patrick, no," she grits out. "If you stop it now there's no telling how much damage you could do. This is what's supposed to happen, I swear."

 

Patrick is wild-eyed, and he doesn't look at all convinced, but he stops struggling. He twitches when Pete lets out a howl like a wounded animal, but he stays back. Pete's voices rises to a piteous shriek and then plummets to a booming note like the tolling of a church bell, and Gerard tamps down the unease curdling in his gut. This is ridiculous, he's seen every evil thing that's ever walked or crawled or slithered in the darkness and this is getting to him? Get a grip, he tells himself, but it's not easy. The noises Pete is making are inhuman and horrible; he's clearly fighting the thing trying to take possession of his body with all his might, his body twisting and jerking like a puppet's. As Pete dances, Gerard can't help but think of a small boat on a storm-tossed sea, about to be engulfed by the towering waves closing in upon it. Patrick flinches every time, probably worrying about Pete hurting himself.

 

The three girls behind Queen B have started singing, a strange song with words from no language Gerard recognizes, clapping their hands and stamping their feet to form an intricate, syncopated beat. He listens - " _Mesye la kwa avanse pou l we yo! Maman Brigitte malad, li kouche sou do, pawol anpil pa leve les morts_ ," - but he doesn't understand a word apart from the name. Their song and Queen B's chanting seem to fill the room like a physical presence, blooming and swelling to take up every inch of space. Gerard feels almost suffocated, as if his chest is being crushed by bands of invisible force. The girls keep singing - " _Mare tet ou, mare vant ou, mare ren ou, yo prale we ki jan yap met a jenou_ ," - and then, just as suddenly as it began, it stops.

 

Pete's body slackens, going limp, as whatever force was riding him abates. Slowly, he raises his head, and Gerard takes an involuntary step backwards. Beside him, Mikey does the same. Pete isn't Pete anymore. There's something in him, something titanic and deeply, immutably other.

 

"Mambo," says Pete's body, in a voice that doesn't belong to it. "My throat is drier than a tomb. Mercy, all that screamin'. You got something for me to drink?"

 

Queen B bows her head in supplication and hands the thing in Pete's body a large glass bottle of clear liquid with several small, fat, red chillis suspended in it.

 

"Thank you, child," says the thing that is not Pete. Its voice is female, deep and rich and dark as chocolate, warm as the sun. The accent is strange, French, maybe, but colored by something else Gerard can't place. It unscrews the bottle's lid and drinks deeply, then smacks its lips and laughs, a raucous, strangely infectious sound. "That's good stuff," it says. "What you put in it?"

 

"Carolina Reaper peppers, Maman," says Queen B, smiling broadly. "Hottest I could get." She seems more relaxed now, but Gerard still isn't sure. It all looks far too much like demon summoning to him.

 

"Mmm." Maman Brigitte takes another long draught. "You did good. So, what you call me up for?"

 

"We need your help," Queen B says, sobering up at once. "We're under attack. The city of New Orleans will be the first casualty if we lose. But we can't fight if we don't know our enemy."

 

"Ahh," Maman Brigitte murmurs. "I see. Child, you got one hell of a battle to win. We feel it comin', all of us."

 

"But what is it?" Gerard asks urgently, the words escaping him before he knows he's doing.

 

Maman Brigitte turns Pete's blazing, bottomless eyes on him. "Evil," she says. "Wrong. Somethin' not of this world. Not of the Bon Dieu's creation."

 

"The...?" Mikey starts, looking completely lost.

 

Queen B's forehead furrows. "Bon Dieu," she says, impatiently. "The good God, the great creator. But not of...? How is that possible?"

 

"Not even I got all the answers, child," says Maman Brigitte. Her face - and Gerard is sure he can make it out now, superimposed over Pete's like a ghost photograph but throbbing with radiant life and power - is troubled. "All I can tell you is this: you ain't got much time," she says, seriously. "Three days. Three days until the stars align and all hell breaks loose." The laughter has faded from her voice, and Pete's body seems to stand up straighter. Fear - real fear, pure, primal terror - rises in Gerard's throat like bile. Here, of all places, it's finally happened. Suddenly, there's not a shred of doubt left in his body that they are facing something real, something awful.

 

"Mambo," Maman Brigitte says. "You got a city to protect. You gonna do that for me?"

 

"I--of course, Maman."

 

"Good," she says approvingly. "You can't trust your daughters to get a job done, you can't trust anyone." She sighs. "Ain't much more I can do for you, child. Unless you got any more of that rum for me, I'll be on my way."

 

Queen B nods, slightly shakily. "Yes. I..." she pauses, wets her lips, centering herself. "I thank you, Maman Brigitte. This ritual is done." She raises her voice. "All forces, entities and energies shall go about their business until again I call. In the Ultimate Name, go in peace. So will it be." Without looking, she extends one hand towards Maggie, who gives her back the bell. She takes it and swings it through the air, its peals seeming to disperse the strange energy in the room like smoke in the wind. "This temple," she says, "Is closed."

 

Pete, exhausted and shaking, is half-carried back to his room by Patrick, who seems to have aged several years over the last couple of hours. While Patrick goes in search of water and sleeping pills and industrial strength painkillers, the others traipse numbly back down to the bar. Gerard goes straight to Amanda and asks her for the biggest glass of bourbon she'll give him, and Mikey gloomily accepts a beer. Together, they watch with matching glazed expressions as Emilie gets up on a table and breaks the news.

 

In the resounding silence that follows, it strikes Gerard that for all his suspicion and his less than charitable thoughts about Voodoo, he'd really thought the ritual would help - not fix everything, maybe, but at least give them some answers. As the dismayed muttering starts to swell like the noise of a swarm of wasps, Frank detaches himself from the crowd and makes his slightly unsteady way over to the bar.

 

"Shit," he says. Gerard snorts. Inarticulate, maybe, but it sums their situation up pretty neatly.

 

"Yeah," Mikey agrees.

 

"I mean," Frank says, a little slurred but perfectly sincere. "I mean... what do we do?"

 

"I don't know." Gerard drains his glass. Amanda, looking dazed, wordlessly pours him another. "Nothing we can do, I guess. Just... wait. And hope we win when it comes."

 

He realizes as he says it just how much trouble they're in. Is it too late already? Despair laps at him like waves against a cliff, threatening to topple him. All these years, all the evil things he and Mikey and every other hunter have poured their lives into hunting down. Was all of that - all the losses and the fear and the sheer, miserable, day-on-day grind of it - for nothing? He downs his drink, feeling the slow burn of it in his throat. The room is still quiet, the pregnant silence that always follows a bombshell. He wants to do... something, but what is there to do? His shock rises to a peak and breaks like a fever, resolving into frustration.

 

"I fucking hate this," he grits out, staring fixedly at his empty glass. "I feel like--like I've been a hunter all my life and it's not enough, you know? What was the point? What's the use if all we can do now is sit here and wait to die?"

 

Neither Frank nor Mikey says a word.

 

Failure, he thinks, taking a perverse pleasure in the way the word turns his stomach. You're a failure. All those years and you haven't learnt a single thing that could save your sorry skin or anyone else's.

 

It's too much. He needs to get very, very drunk, and he needs to do it right now.

 

"'Nother bourbon, please," he says thickly, and pushes his glass back towards Amanda.

 

If there's one thing Gerard knows he's good at, it's drinking himself into oblivion. Mercifully, his gift hasn't deserted him at this crucial juncture, and it's not long after he really starts applying himself to the task in hand that the world starts to blur and back away from him.

 

Half an hour later, the suppressed helplessness is still seething under his skin, and he's itching to start a fight. It's hot and noisy and there are several yells of complaint as he barges his way roughly back through the crush, away from the bar. He can feel the anger writhing in his gut and he embraces it, wrapping himself up in it, letting it grow to fill him completely as he shoves back against the elbow in his ribs. If he can feel the itch of the anger like this, then there's no room left in him to feel anything else. He breaks free of the crowd, breathing hard, his hands balled into fists.

 

This is bad. This is really bad. He does not need to get kicked out of here tonight, and he knows Amanda won't hesitate to do just that if he violates the no brawling rule. He closes his eyes for a moment, picturing Mikey's face, his eyebrows knitting together with exasperation and disappointment, and that helps him force the lid back down over his temper. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He needs to get out. He pushes his way through to the stairwell and starts to climb. Some space, that's all he needs. Some room to breathe.

 

He's barely got one foot on the top step when someone cannons into him, nearly knocking him right back down again. He reels, grabbing wildly at the bannister, and rights himself. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the gloom of the hallway, but when they do, he sees--Frank. He almost wants to laugh, because of _course_ it is. Frank is wide-eyed, breathing fast, wild-looking and tousled. It's deeply strange, seeing the way he feels reflected back at him on Frank's face, in the taut, strained lines of his shoulders.

 

Gerard sees the look on Frank's face and reads it: _if you need a confession, I'm guilty_.

 

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

 

He launches himself at Frank and Frank bares his teeth, getting low and throwing his weight against Gerard. Gerard shoves him back but Frank is stronger than he looks, five foot four of lean muscle and fury. He rocks back then lunges forward, getting low and catching Gerard in the ribs with his elbow. Gerard doubles over, swearing under his breath, and Frank doesn't hesitate to push his advantage by sweeping Gerard's legs from under him. He goes down hard, then, snarling, grabs Frank and pulls himself back to his feet. Just for a split second, Frank is caught off balance, and Gerard slams him back against the wall. All the air leaves Frank's lungs at once and he grunts, struggling to twist out of Gerard's grip. Gerard is bigger and heavier, but not by much, and he knows he won't be able to hold Frank for long.

 

Frank mutters something unintelligible and finally succeeds in pushing Gerard off him. The savagery of it takes Gerard by surprise and he stumbles backwards until his own back is up against the opposite wall of the narrow hallway. Frank, who was obviously expecting to meet with more resistance, loses his balance and falls forwards into Gerard, his chest heaving. There's a momentary scuffle while Frank tries to right himself, but Gerard yanks him in closer and drives his knee into Frank's thigh. Frank bellows with rage and pain and stumbles, almost falling, but he regains his balance and throws himself at Gerard, bringing him to his knees. The impact ripples up through Gerard's spine and bends the floorboards beneath them and then Frank is on him, his whole squirming, spitting weight.

 

And then Frank stills, shudders, and Gerard can feel Frank's dick pressing hot and hard against his thigh. Gerard grinds up against him, his own crotch rubbing against Frank's hip, and Frank's eyelids flutter and his mouth falls open.

 

"Shit," he grunts, rolling his hips, his fingers digging into Gerard's shoulders.

 

"Get the fuck off me," Gerard chokes out. He twists, throwing Frank off, and drags him towards the nearest door. It's the bathroom at the end of the hallway, and the two of them half stumble, half crawl through and Gerard kicks it shut behind them. Frank backs him up against the door, so roughly it hurts and makes him suck in a breath through his teeth. He gets his hands in Gerard's hair, tugging hard, and carries on grinding on him, panting in Gerard's ear. Gerard lets his legs fall open and grabs Frank by the shoulders, pulling him in and fitting their bodies together. He bares his teeth and shoves his hands up under Frank's shirt, dragging his blunt fingernails down Frank's back. Frank shudders and moans, his hot mouth in Gerard's hair as he ruts against him. They don't talk or kiss, just gasp and curse and clutch at each other in the cool darkness of the bathroom. It's messy and rough, more like a fight than a fuck, but the friction is delicious and Gerard can feel his whole body tightening as he gets close. It's just like the first time they fucked, back in Ithaca - it's not about them wanting each other, just the two of them using each other's bodies to get off.

 

Frank is pulling Gerard's hair, his breath hitching, and Gerard gets his hands around Frank's back, his fingers hooking into the sweat-damp fabric of his shirt as he grunts and gasps his way closer to release. At last, he stiffens, quivers and lets out a bitten-off moan as he comes in his pants. He slumps against Gerard, breathing hard as his fingers slacken in Gerard's hair.

 

Gerard curses and fumbles with his jeans, so fucking turned on and so _ready_ that his hands are shaking and it takes him several tries. Eventually, he manages to yank the zipper down and tugs his boxers out of the way, then spits into his hand and starts to jack himself off. Frank's hot hand finds his and their fingers tangle together, stroking hard and fast. He was already close but this is so good, almost painfully intense after the muted sensation he was getting through two layers of clothing, and before long he's bucking into their joined hands, his cock leaking precome, pushing faster and faster and faster, and then he's coming so hard he sees stars.

 

"Shit," he pants, sliding down the door and splaying his legs out across the cool, dark floor as he rides the high.

 

"Mm," Frank agrees, slumping down next to him. He offers Gerard a cigarette and they smoke in silence, sweat cooling on their skin as their breathing slows. "So," he says, after a long moment. "Is this, like. Our _thing_ , now, fucking in public bathrooms?"

 

Gerard shrugs the shoulder that Frank isn't sprawled against. "Nice to have traditions, isn't it?"

 

Frank laughs abruptly, the sound startled out of him. Gerard wonders how long it's been since the last time he laughed. It lights up his whole face like sun piercing through clouds, a fleeting moment of something unguarded and pure. He looks young, a glimpse of the kid he is visible through the hard-bitten hunter he's become.

 

Something twists painfully in Gerard's gut. Things would have been different, he knows, if they'd met ten years ago, or in some other life where they were both blissfully unaware of the monsters that stalk, unseen, through the tide of humanity's comings and goings. But they both have to play with the hands they've been dealt, and there's no point dwelling on the what ifs.

 

"There something on my face?" Frank says, raising one eyebrow at him, and Gerard realizes he's been staring.

 

"Nothing," he says, quickly. He swallows the tightness in his throat. "Just thinking, I guess."

 

"Thinking? Don't hurt yourself."

 

"Oh, ha ha. Original."

 

"Thank you." Frank affects something that he probably imagines is a dignified expression.

 

"As lame as that was, I knew there was a sense of humor in there somewhere."

 

"Your faith in me is touching," Frank says, rolling his eyes, but he's smiling, just a little bit. Silence falls again. Frank finishes his cigarette and grinds it out against the sole of his shoe.

 

"I'm glad we ran into you," Gerard says, before he can talk himself out of it.

 

"I kind of had the impression you freaked the fuck out when you worked out who I was."

 

"Okay, no," Gerard concedes. "I did. A bit. I thought you were gonna break my neck just for mentioning it. But, you know, I'm glad you didn't."

 

"I think most people would be glad not to have a broken neck," Frank says, utterly deadpan, but then the corner of his mouth twitches. He pauses for a moment, like he's trying to get his own head around the words. "I might have been pissed as hell when you pulled me out of that swamp, but I'm kind of glad you did. I guess."

 

"Me too," Gerard says quietly, although he isn't at all sure he means it. "Me too."

  

 

*

 

 

The next day dawns hot and sultry, a sullen sun hovering in a hazy, leaden sky. The atmosphere in the bar is funereal, as most of the hunters are nursing hangovers from the night before. Pete sits at the bar drinking cup after cup of strong, bitter coffee, because shaking hands and a rabbit heart are better than the nightmares. When he sleeps he thrashes and kicks and howls like a man possessed, his brain crowded with visions of horror beyond understanding and terror beyond reason. Patrick stays up with him, rubbing his eyes, his jaw clenched. He has the look of a dead man walking, as if something in him has been unplugged.

 

Emilie and Ray sit at a table with their heads bent close together, talking in low voices as they search desperately through Emilie's book for something - anything - that could save them all. Even in the soft light Ray's face looks lined and tired; Emilie's drawn and gaunt.

 

Amanda is sitting with Adam and his crows, looking hopeless.

 

Frank is slumped low in his seat, his eyes unfocussed, as if he's staring through some hole in reality and into the black, beckoning beyond. He looks unkempt and unshaven, like a stray dog. He seems to have spent the day trying to drink himself into oblivion.

 

Gerard and Mikey are sitting shoulder to shoulder, neither of them talking. Gerard feels strangely blank, after everything. After all the tension and the turmoil of the last few days, he feels like his batteries have gone flat. All the fight seems to have leaked out of him like air from a flat tire.

 

Outside, a deep, gut-churning rumble of thunder rolls through the mottled, livid sky, and rain starts to fall in fat, heavy drops as warm as blood.

 

"I tell you something," Frank slurs, breaking the silence with a black, mirthless chuckle. "This sure as hell isn't how I imagined the last night on earth."

 

Gerard snorts. "Tell me about it," he says. "We're not exactly going out in style, are we?"

 

"I thought it'd be a party," Mikey says gloomily. "I don't feel like partying."

 

And then the door opens with a bang, revealing a figure silhouetted against the storm raging outside, haloed by lightning.

There are several seconds of ringing silence.

 

The man in the doorway steps forward into the light. Gerard's eyes touch on a shaven head, hollowed eyes, a long, dark coat flapping and billowing in the wind, bare feet. Gerard squints at what he'd taken for a strange, sleek scarf draped around the man's shoulders, then recoils. A snake. It's a live snake, its flat head turning this way and that and its forked tongue tasting the air.

 

"Well," says the stranger softly, in a lilting, accented voice. "Is no one going to invite me in?"

 

Amanda rises from her chair, quickly followed by Emilie and Janelle. The three of them make for a surprisingly intimidating sight, arms folded, heads held high. "Who are you?" Amanda asks.

 

"Grant," says the man in the doorway, inclining his head politely. "Hello."

 

"And... what are you?" asks Emilie, her eyes narrowed. She moves towards him, her footsteps as silent as a cat's. "You're not a hunter, you're not one of Queen B's. So who are you?"

 

Grant raises his empty hands in a gesture of surrender. "Please hear me out," he says softly. "I'm not here to make trouble, although god knows there isn't much I could do just now. I live in Bayou Sauvage, just on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. I've been listening. I know there's something waking up here. I've been trying to stop it."

 

"But who are you?" Amanda repeats. She walks steadily towards him, unafraid and suspicious. "Why should we let you in here? We got a lot of guns."

 

"Because," Grant says, standing his ground, the air around him crackling with some indefinable energy. "I can help you." He exhales slowly. "I'm... a chaos magic practitioner."

 

"A witch," Janelle says sharply. "A witch, is that what you're saying?"

 

"Not a word I like to use." Grant's voice is level, but Gerard sees him swallow as his eyes dart around the room. "But I suppose you're right, yes. I'm a witch."

 

Gerard's sharp inhale isn't the only one.

 

"You got some balls, just walking in here," Janelle says, raising an eyebrow. "... _Witch_." Her lip curls, and there's a murmur of agreement from the assembled company. Impossibly, the tautness in the room seems even more thinly stretched than before.

 

"Why shouldn't I put a bullet in you right now?" growls Adam, getting to his feet and swaggering forward to stand at Amanda's shoulder. The snake's tongue flicks out again, the tip of its dark, glossy tail twitching. Amanda shoots him a warning look, and he nods, just once, in understanding. Everyone in the room knows full well that Amanda can more than hold her own with a gun in her hands.

 

"You say you can help us," she says, returning her attention to Grant. "How?"

 

"May I come in?" he asks. "I'll explain everything. I'm unarmed, look." He spreads his hands wide. Amanda gives him a long, searching look. The room holds its breath. This is momentous, a moment singing with possibilities.

 

"Okay," says Amanda finally. "Come in. It's not like things can get much worse."

 

Grant steps inside, closing the door against the wind and the lashing rain behind him. Amanda beckons him over to a table in the middle of the room, and gestures for him to take a seat opposite her. Every eye in the room is fixed on Grant. Janelle wasn't wrong; for a witch to walk empty-handed into a room full of hunters isn't just brave, it's suicidal. Grant must have known that there was a good chance he'd wind up leaving Maman Brigitte's in a body bag, and yet still he came. Either Grant is a madman (still a distinct possibility), or things are even worse than any of them had realized.

 

Grant and Amanda watch each other warily, the table between them like a miniature no man's land. Grant's expression is unreadable, the snake winding itself sinuously around him. For a long time, no one says a word, then Amanda breaks the impasse.

 

"Well?"

 

Grant bows his head. "I've known for a long time that something was coming," he says, his voice low. "Something wicked, if you will. I tracked it, looking for patterns, and they led me here. There's something sleeping in the lake. But it's not sleeping anymore, is it? I've been trying to stop it, to hold it back."

 

"Why?" asks Emilie, stood behind Amanda with her hands on her hips. Her face is every bit as coolly inscrutable as Grant's. "Why would you try to stop it? What's in it for you?"

 

Grant looks up at her, his smooth facade cracking to reveal a sardonic smile. "Much the same as what's in it for you, I'd imagine," he says. "I'm not so different from you, as little as you might want to believe it. I'd rather the world didn't end this week, myself. We want the same things." There's a brief murmur of dissent, but Amanda silences it with a glare.

 

"And you think you can help us stop this... thing, whatever it is?" says Amanda.

 

"I do."

 

"Can you tell us what it is we're up against? What is this thing?"

 

"Old," Grant says darkly, and the light around him seems to quiver. "Old and angry. It's been waiting a long time. It was born way back when the earth was just a godforsaken rock, hurtling through space. It's made of blood and stardust and it came to earth as a foot soldier. A scout."

 

There is a long, shocked silence, broken only by the muffled sounds of the storm's fury as it tears up the night.

 

"There are more?" Emilie's voice is strained and her eyes are wide. "What--we've got here is only one?"

 

"Yes," Grant says gravely. "It's been here a long time. It was supposed to bring the others through, but something went wrong. I believe it was hurt. It's been waiting. Healing." He's leaning forward across the table towards Amanda, his voice low and urgent.

 

"So now it's coming back for take two," Amanda says, and Grant nods.

 

"So we kill it," says Janelle curtly. "Why do we need you? We got every hunter in a thousand miles right here."

 

A ripple of agreement this time. It sounds like most of the hunters are with Janelle.

 

"You won't win," Grant says softly. "Not with every gun in the world. Riddle it with silver bullets, salt it, douse it in gasoline and burn it, it doesn't matter. It can't be killed."

 

There's a long, horrible silence. Outside, the wind and the rain batter the windows. Somewhere along the way, the power balance in the room seems to have shifted.

 

"So what do we do?" Emilie asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

 

"You can't kill a god," Grant says. "A god is an idea, a god survives when you destroy its idols. What we can do is bind it."

 

"So why haven't you done it already?" says Amanda shrewdly. "What do you need us for?"

 

"It's taken me a long time to see it," Grant says. "It should have been obvious. None of my efforts to stop it pushing through into this world seemed to be having any effect at all. I thought it was just that it was too strong. I was mistaken. They weren't working because it's already here. It's not coming through, it's waking up." he pauses, allowing the assembled hunters to digest this horrifying thought.

 

"So we're too late," says Pete, in a small, broken voice. Gerard doesn't have to be psychic to see what's going through his head; Pete's heart is always so prominently on display, pinned to his sleeve, that sometimes it's hard to look at. Gerard feels for him. Everything he's been through, everything he's endured for the sake of all of them - all for nothing.

 

"No," Grant says, and  instead of relaxing, the atmosphere tautens perceptibly. "We just need to try something different. But I'm going to need your help. All of you. If you agree, every single person on this planet will owe you their lives. If not..." he exhales slowly. "All I can ask is that you let me walk free to do what I can against this creature. I know my kind and yours have never been the best of friends, but this is bigger than our petty squabbles. I have the thing we need," he says seriously. "It's a book. It's taken me years to translate it, but it tells us what we need to know."

 

"A book?" Emilie sounds skeptical. "What book?"

 

"It's called the Necronomicon."

 

Gerard and Mikey exchange blank looks, but Emilie's face hardens, the faint light of hope dying in her eyes. "The Necronomicon doesn't exist," she says wearily. "It's a myth. If there ever was such a book it's been lost, no one's ever seen it. You've been taken for a ride."

 

Grant's composure doesn't falter. His hands, resting palms-down on the table top, are perfectly steady. "I believe not. I thought it was a hoax at first too, but it seems to be the genuine article."

 

Amanda's eyes are narrowed, her hands on her hips. "I swear to all the gods, if you're wasting your time--"

 

"I'm not," Grant insists. "The Necronomicon, it's real. I have a copy. Maybe the last one, I'm not sure. I believe I've translated a passage that may be able to help us."

 

"Okay," Emilie says slowly. "I'll bite. How do we do it? This... god, how do we stop it coming through?"

 

"Oh, it's too late for that. It's already here. We can't banish it, not even the Greater Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram would do it. What we _can_ do is bind it. If we can paralyze it, freeze it just before it truly awakens, we can stop it. It would still be there, somewhere under Lake Pontchartrain, but petrified. No more dangerous than a fossilized dinosaur."

 

There's a long, long silence, then a voice speaks up from the corner.

 

"How?"

 

Gerard looks over, surprised, to see Pete. He looks as haggard and ill as ever, sitting on the edge of the circle of lamplight as if he's unwilling to get too close to the hunters. The shadows under his eyes are as deep and dark as fresh bruises, his hair rumpled and his eyes bleary. Gerard wonders how many days it's been since he slept. Sitting just behind him is Patrick, his jaw clenched, like some sort of guard dog. His stiffness and stillness throw Pete's slumped shoulders and loose limbs into sharp relief.

 

"How do we... bind it?" Pete swallows. "I mean, what--what do we have to do?"

 

"The ritual isn't complicated," Grant says, focusing his attention on Pete like a spotlight. "Chaos Magic is about belief. The more of us the better, that's where the power comes from. With the right sigil, one person allowing us to place him or her in a state of excitatory gnosis and the rest of us working through them, we can contain it."

 

Silence falls again while everyone digests this information, and once again, it's Pete who breaks it. He nods, just once, as though he's come to some kind of decision. "I'll do it," he says.

 

"Are you sure?" Grant looks Pete up and down, evidently concerned. "It'll be dangerous. You'll have to get close to this thing. Not in a physical sense, of course, but it'll be your mind it comes up against. You'll have all of us behind you, but you'll be the front line. I don't even know how strong it really is, the mental contact alone could leave you seriously damaged."

 

Pete lets out a short, sharp laugh, entirely devoid of mirth. "I think it's a bit too late for that," he says. The crush of people parts around him and he threads his way through to sit down with Grant and Emilie. Behind him, Gerard glimpses Patrick's stricken face before he turns away and disappears.

 

"Okay," Pete says, his words falling through the heavy silence. "What's the plan?"

 

The tension in the crowded room hangs heavily in the air like dust caught in a shaft of sunlight. The lamps cast everything in moody sepia tones, lending them the air of conspirators.

 

"Dearly beloved," says Amanda solemnly, tapping a teaspoon against a beer bottle for attention, and silence falls with unnatural speed. "We are gathered here today to plot murder most foul of an elder god. May we not be caught and locked up. Cheers."

 

She raises the bottle in a toast, and a ripple of brittle, startled laughter ensues.

 

Grant turns slowly, taking them all in. "The ritual is, in essence, very simple," he says. "Pete here will be in a trance state that we call excitatory gnosis. He'll be the spearhead. The magnifying glass through which we focus the sunlight onto the ant, if you will, although of course it's considerably more than an ant we're going up against. What I need from the rest of you is the sunlight. Your collective willpower will be the engine that drives him. One second of doubt or distraction from any one of you could ruin everything."

 

A shuffling, a murmuring. Their little army is uneasy. Gerard glances around, waiting for someone to speak out, but no one does. Grant's eyes are hard.

 

"Hey."

 

Gerard looks around, surprised, to see the crush of people parting around Ray, his broad shoulders and wild hair silhouetted in the lamplight.

 

"I think... I can help," he says. He looks self-conscious, unused to being the center of attention like this. He adjusts the patch over his missing left eye, hovering uncertainly on the edge of the crowd. "With the ritual, I mean. I don't hunt anymore but I, uh, read a lot. It's kind of a hobby."

 

Behind his back, Mikey rolls his eyes at Ray's typical modesty, and gives him a gentle shove forward.

 

"He's unbelievable," Mikey says loudly, and a few other hunters murmur in agreement. "Knows fucking everything about spells and rituals and shit. He can help."

 

From across the circle, Janelle flashes Ray a radiant smile and color rises in his face. He looks down, pushing his hand through his hair.

 

"I... yeah," he says. "If you want me."

 

Grant is already pulling out a chair for him, and Ray takes his seat at the table.

 

"We can finalize the details of the ritual later. Your assistance will be invaluable, but there's not much we'll be able to do until right before it happens," Grant says tersely. "It's still mostly dormant. It won't be vulnerable until later. If my calculations are correct, things will start to happen around dusk. By midnight it'll be too late. That gives us a window of just over two hours."

 

Emilie lets out a low whistle. "Two hours, huh? So why the fuck are we still sitting around here?"

 

Things happen very quickly after that; all the singing tension and nervous energy in the room finds a release valve in decisive action at last. At least, Gerard would rather pit himself against an elder god than sit at a bar and wait to die. It feels good just to be doing something, no matter what a long shot it might be. Amanda sets a crew of hunters to clearing the tables and chairs from the floor so Grant can draw the modified pentagram they need.

 

"How will we know?" Mikey says. "When it starts, I mean. Will we see anything?"

 

A brief, grim smile flits across Grant's face. "You'll know," he says. He glances out through the window. Through the clouds, the sun is barely visible, already sinking back towards the treetops like some great beast, bloated and heavy-bellied with its prey. Gerard knows he should be tired, but adrenaline is coursing brightly through him and he doesn't feel like he could ever sleep again. He helps Adam and some of the others clear the chairs and tables from the floor and stack them in the corners, making space for Grant to chalk his modified pentagram on the bare floorboards. With that done, the assembled hunters gather around the strange sigil in a ragged circle.

 

"A chair, please," Grant says, looking up. Amanda drags one across the floor into the middle of the circle. "Thanks," he says quietly, then looks up at Pete. "This is where you'll be."

 

Pete, hunched over with his sleeves pulled down over his hands and his arms folded protectively across his body, looks terribly young. But he nods, and doesn't ask exactly what it is he'll be doing. Gerard doesn't blame him. He doesn't think he'd want to know either. Patrick, standing by Pete's side, pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes, trying desperately to breathe evenly. Pete stands slowly, shakily, and makes his way over to the chair like a condemned man walking to the gallows. He looks so weak; the Voodoo queen's summoning obviously cost him dearly. Gerard watches as, unnoticed by anyone else, Patrick slips away from the crowd and into the back room.

 

"We're just gonna strap you in," Ray says gently to Pete, unbuckling his belt and pulling it free of his jeans. "Just to make sure you don't hurt yourself. I mean, as far as we know, no one's ever attempted anything like this before. We're not exactly sure what's going to happen."

 

"Gee, thanks for that," Pete mutters, as Ray wraps the belt tightly around his ankle and fastens it to the leg of the chair. "I feel totally confident now. You know, definitely not at all shit-my-pants-terrified or anything."

 

Ray steps back and bites his lip, his expression wounded, and Pete has the decency to look sheepish.

 

"Sorry," he says quietly. "I know you're not trying to... I'm just scared," he mumbles, after a long pause. His cheeks are flushed with embarrassment.

 

Ray huffs out a laugh and sets to work again, securing Pete's other ankle and both of his arms to the chair with an assortment of other belts and pieces of thick rope. "I don't blame you," he says. "We're all scared to death, you know. I'd be worried if you weren't." He straightens up again, wincing as his spine clicks and protests. "Ow, fuck," he grumbles. "I'm getting too old for this."

 

Mikey cuts his eyes sideways at Gerard and flashes him a lightning-fast smile. Ray has been saying that for at least ten years, probably longer.

 

"Open wide," Ray says, holding out another belt, this one folded over several times.

 

"Maybe if you buy me dinner first," Pete shoots back, his mouth suddenly curled into a broad grin.

 

Ray rolls his eyes. "Will you cut it _out?_ Jesus Christ, I'm surrounded by idiots. It's to stop you biting through your own tongue, you asshole," he says, and Pete sobers up immediately. He obediently opens his mouth, and Ray carefully pushes the belt between his teeth.

 

No one says a word. The silence is almost unbearable, and it's several seconds before Gerard even realizes that he's holding his breath.

 

And then it begins. The temperature in the room doesn't change, but Gerard can feel its presence inside his head and it's cold, cold like deep space and deep water, dark and alien and wrong. He can feel slimy tendrils of a pure, primal terror prying at the very bricks and mortar of his sanity. He feels like a man teetering on the edge of a bottomless void, a mere speck next to something so colossal. He wants to back away, wants to scream, wants to run--

 

"Block it out!" Grant thunders, his voice piercing through the haze of Gerard's panic like the sun through clouds. "Shut it out of your heads, don't let it get a hold of you!"

 

With a heroic effort, Gerard finally manages to throw it off, and his head clears a little. He can still feel it, but it's distant and muffled. He turns immediately to Mikey, grabs his shoulder and shakes it.

 

"Mikes," he says urgently. "Hey, Mikes, look at me."

 

"M'okay," Mikey says thickly, swaying slightly in place. "I think... I think it hit me harder than you."

 

"Jesus," mutters Gerard, leading Mikey over to the bar and propping him up against it. "I'm not surprised, this is one mean son of a bitch." It was bad enough for him, he can't imagine how much worse it would have been for Mikey and his amplified sensitivity.

 

"Hey," Mikey croaks, then swallows. "Hey," he says again, his voice stronger now. "Something's happening, look at Pete."

 

Gerard straightens up and pushes his way through the crush, dragging Mikey with him until they're just outside the circle, right behind Grant. Pete's mouth is working furiously, strings of words spilling out of him, his eyelids fluttering and his eyes rolling back in his head. Grant is crouched low on his haunches, watching Pete intently.

 

"What's he saying?" Gerard murmurs, leaning down next to Grant.

 

"It's from the book," Grant says quietly, still not taking his eyes off Pete. "The Necronomicon, I mean. Some of it's in English, some archaic Arabic, some... something older that doesn't correlate with any modern or ancient human language that I know of. I didn't recognize it at first, the translation's a bit different from mine, but that's it, alright."

 

Abruptly, Pete's unintelligible gibbering switches to English. "The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, the Old Ones will be," he intones. The voice is his, but the inflection is strange, as if something unused to human speech is shaping the words. "Not in the spaces we know but between them they walk, serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate." The language warps and stretches, contorting monstrously into crude, guttural syllables that are unmistakably inhuman. It sounds alien and unsettling, and _old_.

 

"Past, present and future, all are one," Grant breathes, watching Pete from the midst of a sort of horrified trance. With a blood-curdling howl, Pete reverts to English, but his eyes are still blank and sightless. 

 

"He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old and where They shall break through again! He knows where They had trod the earth's fields and where They still tread them and why none can behold Them as They tread!" Several seconds of the horrible, unearthly language, Pete's voice hoarse and strains as he struggles with words not made for any human tongue. His face is flushed and glistening with sweat as he sucks in a ragged breath. "Differing... ahh, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them!"

 

Gerard glances at Mikey. He looks just as confused and unsettled as Gerard, and from the look on his face it's obvious that he doesn't understand it either.

 

"They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the words have been spoken and the Rites howled through their seasons! The wind gibbers with their voices and the earth mutters with their consciousness! They bend the forest and crush the city yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites!"

 

"Nor forest or city behold the hand that smites?" Mikey mutters. "Let's hope Queen B's ready."

 

"...But who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower, long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles?" Pete goes on, his head rolling on his shoulders and his eyelids fluttering. "Great Cthulhu is Their cousin yet can He spy Them only dimly! _Iä, Iä! Cthulhu fthagn!_ As a foulness shall ye know Them! Their hands are at your throats yet _ye see Them not!_ " He howls again, spitting and snarling, straining against their makeshift restraints. A thread of spit drips down from his chin, but he doesn't seem to notice. The tendons in his neck are bulging, and a shockingly bright trickle of blood is running down from his nose. he's working himself up into a frenzy, rocking backwards and forwards in the chair so violently that the legs lift clear off the floor as he reaches a manic fever pitch. "They soon shall rule where man rules now! After summer is winter and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here... here shall They reign again!"

 

Pete lapses back into the incomprehensible, ancient language, his body stilling, and a loud, heavy thud sounds against the door. Every head in the room turns to look out through the window. Through the lashing rain, Gerard can just about make out a face, blank-eyed and devoid of expression, hair plastered flat to its skull by the rain. Its skin has an eerie, greenish cast to it that makes Gerard think of drowning victims. As he watches, it lurches forward, its forehead smacking against the glass.

 

"I should have expected this," Grant calls, over all the noise. For the first time, he looks panicked, and Gerard feels fear's fangs sinking into him again. "It has followers, this thing, a cult that's been keeping it alive all these years. I think these are their bodies, hollowed out and repurposed. It's controlling them and they're already dead, they won't feel pain, and they won't stop--"

 

"We'll take care of it," Adam roars, seizing Sarah, Alex and Vincent and heading for the door. "You keep fucking doing your thing in here, okay?" He adds over his shoulder, as all four of them draw their guns, heave the door open, and slip outside. Gerard hears a shot, almost lost in another titanic clap of thunder, and sees a cloud of sluggish, almost black blood blossom from the dead-eyed skull. The lifeless body falls sideways, its face as blank as ever, and Gerard sees another one take its place for a moment before a shot to its shoulder sends it staggering backwards and another between the eyes takes it down.

 

"Come on," Gerard murmurs to Mikey. "This is freaking me the fuck out, I wanna check on Patrick." He slips back through the crowd of people, making his way behind the bar and into the back room. Patrick is sitting slumped on one of the crates, his head in his hands. He looks like a puppet with the strings cut. Gerard has seen that same defeated look on hunters before - hunters who have already lost their friends, their partners, their crews. Patrick has given up.

 

"Hey," Gerard says, clapping Patrick on the shoulder and dropping down onto the crate next to him. "What are you doing out here? Thought you'd be in there with him."

 

Patrick shakes his head, staring at the floor. His eyes are puffy and red-rimmed and his hands are shaking. "Couldn't do it," he says, in a choked voice. "I couldn't... I couldn't watch. It's tearing him apart in there."

 

Another horrible scream sounds from behind the door.

 

"He's doing it for all of us," Mikey says quietly. "He's real brave."

 

Patrick manages a jerky nod. "Yeah," he says thickly. "Yeah, he is." He exhales slowly and gets to his feet, rubbing his eyes. "I should get back out there," he says. "I can't... he shouldn't have to do this alone." He walks back out without another word, and shrugs Mikey's hand off when Mikey tries to wrap an arm around him. Gerard follows them both back out into the bar and shuffles back through the dumbstruck hunters. He sees Grant moving quickly, stepping into the circle without smudging any of the chalk lines and dropping to his haunches again in front of Pete. He cups Pete's face in his hands, staring intently into his eyes. His mouth is moving, and Gerard strains to make out the words over the howling of the storm outside. He's chanting, Gerard realizes, moving in time to some rhythm only he can hear.

 

"Faceless one, you are bound," he intones, his voice rising over the hammering of the rain. Pete jerks as if he's been electrocuted, and a trickle of blood begins to run down his neck from his ear as well. Grant doesn't stop, just keeps chanting.

 

"With me, everyone!" he shouts, and a chorus of voices rises around him. "Faceless one, you are bound. Faceless one, you are bound."

 

He looks outside and sees the darkness itself writhing and contorting, the windows rattling as the wind howls louder than ever and the rain beats down. It's a true summer storm, terrible in its fury. The sky is full of boiling clouds and the blood-warm rain is a constant roar of white noise, the sky cracked open again and again by tongues of lightning. The thunder comes in low, guttural rolls loud enough to rattle the window panes, like the bellowing of an angry god. Inside, Pete thrashes and snarls, blood pouring thickly from his nose and cutting through the sweat glistening on his skin. If it wasn't for the wadded-up belt stuffed into his mouth, he probably would have bitten through his own tongue by now. As Gerard watches, blood begins to trickle from his ears, too, and he throws his head back with a muffled roar of agony.

 

By Gerard's side, Mikey is leaning heavily on Ray, breathing hard and rubbing his temples, while Ray himself stands like a solid tower of strength with his eyes screwed shut as his mouth forms the words over and over again, his one hand intertwined with Janelle's. Frank is bent almost double, his hands braced on his knees, his body shaking violently and the back of his ratty t-shirt dark and clinging with sweat. Amanda and Janelle stand hand-in-hand with Emilie, holding her up between them as she sways, ashen-faced and apparently struggling for breath.

 

But whatever they're doing, it isn't going unnoticed by the creature. Gerard can feel the thing, cold tendrils of gibbering dread slipping into his head and tangling his thoughts into unintelligible snarls. It bellows with primal, mindless rage, hurling itself against the bonds they've wrought. Pete convulses violently, his spine arching as he bellows with the creature's fury. He manages to spit out the belt in his mouth and lets loose with a blood-curdling scream like rusty razor wire before Patrick and Grant are able to cram it back into his mouth. Even through the rippling, seething air, Gerard can see the shining tear tracks on Patrick's cheeks.

 

Time itself seems to warp and twist around them, this tiny pocket of resistance against the furious cauldron of force that's about to engulf the whole world. Gerard realizes with a start that he doesn't know how long they've been chanting; five minutes? An hour? Longer? His throat is dry and sore and all he knows are Frank and Mikey's hands in his, the deafening storm inside and out. He can feel the water of Lake Pontchartrain seething just like the air in the bar, buffeting them all this way and that. Mikey is sweating bullets but his jaw is clenched, the fury of the creature rippling through him. Frank is  swaying on his feet but he looks just as determined as Mikey and their strength drives him on, gives him the fire in his belly that he needs. It's awake now, awake and _angry_ , its full strength and fury looming terribly over them.

 

"We're so close!" Grant bellows, his voice barely audible over the racket. "We're almost there, everybody, _keep going!_ "

 

Gerard can feel it, can _feel_ everything that they are and everywhere that they've been, everything that they've seen and felt and done dragging them onwards towards this moment. One window shatters, then another, mirror-bright shards of glass exploding into the room. Pete is screaming, thrashing around in agony, but the chanting goes on, loops and bands of words and energy spiraling around them all and binding the elder god in the lake. Gerard feels as if he's hundreds of feet under water or light years deep in outer space, at once being crushed inwards and torn apart by the pressure of it. He feels so small but so _connected_ , as if he and all the others are fish in a shoal, stars in a galaxy and oh god, it's too much, he's not strong enough, his skull is about to cave in and he's going to _break_ \--

 

And then everything goes black.

 

 

*

 

 

Consciousness returns to Gerard slowly, in sharp, jagged pieces. Pain the like of which he's never known suffuses every part of him, nausea following in the wake of every wave. At first, he doesn't know where he is or even _who_ he is, only that if the pain would only stophe might be able to think.

 

He's lying on something hard, curled in on himself, whimpering faintly. He can feel water where his cheek is pressed to the floor - it is the floor, it must be, no bed would be this hard - and he cautiously pokes his tongue out between his parched, chapped lips to taste it. He gags; it's foul, brackish. Something is digging painfully into his arm, so he twists, grimacing, and pulls at whatever it is. He inhales sharply, razor-sharp pain flashing through his fingertips. It's a shard of glass, now dripping blood from his lacerated hand. Glass. That stirs something in his memory, if he could just _reach_ it. He forces himself to concentrate. Broken glass - the windows. He remembers windows breaking in those few final, desperate seconds, just before the end. But the end of _what?_ He casts around for other familiar things, hoping for some clue that will anchor him in the present. Where's Mikey?

 

His eyes fly open, heedless of the agony that courses through him anew, and he stares frantically around him. He picks out the line of a shoulder, the curve of a neck, and, thank god, Mikey's tousled light brown hair. He's on the floor too, as still as a corpse, and Gerard's momentary relief is replaced by icy panic. He tries to say Mikey's name, but nothing comes out. His throat feels raw, almost flayed. He coughs instead, a painful spasm that racks his entire body, and he sees Mikey stiffen. Alive, Gerard thinks, and he could cry. Mikey is alive. He's okay.

 

It's as if Mikey was the key to Gerard's addled memory. Like water through a broken dam, recollection floods into his mind, flickering like an old movie projector running at double speed. Grant. Pete. Oh, Christ, _Pete_. Gerard wonders where he is, what happened to him. Gerard remembers the storm, the chanting, that horrible, inhuman tongue, the feeling of being an ant before a god of madness and might.

 

And yet, somehow, they're still breathing. Gerard is pretty sure this can't be heaven, because if it were, he wouldn't be lying on a wet floor covered in broken glass. He closes his eyes for a long moment, steeling himself, then, slowly, cautiously, gets to his feet. Outside, the dawn is breaking, pale light streaming through the glassless windows. The floor is strewn with bodies, some groaning weakly, some shaking, some lying still. Mikey is curled up at Gerard's feet, Frank is lying crumpled a short distance away. His chest is rising and falling gently, and Gerard lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He picks his way gingerly across the room, the glass crunching under his feet. He sees Ray curled protectively around Janelle, and can't bring himself to lean down and check whether or not they're still breathing. He sees Grant sprawled among the smudged, watermarked remnants of the pentagram, Patrick lying face down with one hand stretched out towards--

 

Gerard has to pause again to steady himself, drawing and letting out a long breath. Pete, his small body limp and lifeless, the front of his shirt stained red, the chair splintered around him. His open, sightless eyes are red with broken veins, and Gerard sinks to his knees and extends one trembling hand to close them. He feels the tears well up and he lets them come, streaming down his face and splashing down on his knees. Gerard hadn't known him well but, god, he didn't deserve this, frayed and finally torn apart by a monster he was never strong enough to face. But he did, for all of their sakes, and this is what he got for it. He remembers what Emilie said the day they'd met, about it being too late to save him anyway, but that doesn't make the reality any less bitter. He thinks of Adam and Sarah and Vince, gone out into the storm with their shotguns to hold back the tide of undead bodies. He knows, really, that he's seen them alive for the last time. His heart clenches. He hopes, at least, that it was quick.

 

He doesn't move from that spot as the others start to stir around him, some sobbing and clutching their heads, some gagging, some gasping for air like drowning men. Gerard looks down and Patrick and hopes with all his heart that he won't wake too soon, because as soon as he does, he'll know, and he might not survive the loss. He doesn't disturb Patrick, and that's where they find him, kneeling over Pete's still, cold body in the stagnant water and the broken glass, crying like a baby. For him, for Patrick, for Emilie and Amanda and Janelle, for Ray, for Frank and Mikey. It's more than grief, it's-- he doesn't know, some kind of release that somehow feels too big for him, spilling out of his body. He feels a hand on his shoulder and recognizes the touch of Mikey's long, thin fingers, but he doesn't get up. He can't, not yet. He just needs a little time, and then he thinks he might be okay.

 

He doesn't know how long he sits there, but after a while (an hour, a day?) the tears dry up and he slowly becomes aware of people moving around him, of others crying, of footsteps and the tinkling swish of the powdered glass being swept away. When, at long last, he stands, his legs protest and his head spins. He feels like a sleepwalker, just visiting this strange, hollowed-out world.

 

He staggers over to the bottom of the stairs and slumps down, watching the flurry of people like the flecks of glitter in a snowglobe. Their blank faces reflect the roaring white noise he can feel inside his own head. He remembers those few strange moments when he felt as though each of them was a part of him, when he could feel every thought in their heads. They feel as distant as the stars now, and just as unknowable and alien.

 

Another body drops down next to him. Mikey.

 

"Mikey," he says, his own voice ringing strangely in his head, his voice dry and rough from lack of use. "Oh, god, Mikey, I thought--"

 

"I know," Mikey murmurs. "I know." He rests his head on Gerard's shoulder and they sit there in silence for a while, both of them feeling the other's warmth and life and basking in gratitude for it.

 

"Pete," Gerard chokes. "He..."

 

"Yeah." Mikey's voice shakes, cracks, and silence falls again. Across the room, Patrick is on his knees, clutching Pete's hand, shaking with immense, silent sobs. "I'm gonna go talk to him," Mikey says quietly, and Gerard nods.

 

"Go," he says, drawing a steadying breath. "He needs you more than I do."

 

Mikey nods and pushes himself to his feet. "I'll come back," he says. "You stay here."

 

Gerard doesn't need telling twice. He watches Mikey pick his way through the debris of the aftermath and crouch beside Patrick. Gerard closes his eyes again and tries to get a hold of himself, letting the noise of a dozen hushed conversations wash over him. When he feels someone else sit down next to him, he assumes it's Mikey, and doesn't open his eyes.

 

"Hey," says a voice, and Gerard's eyes snap open.

 

"Frank," he says. "You're... shit. You made it."

 

"Looks that way, huh?" Frank says softly. He doesn't look at Gerard. Gerard is glad; he doesn't know what he'd see if he looked into Frank's face now.

 

"I'm glad," Gerard says. His stomach twists. He's hungry but he doesn't want to eat. He wants a smoke. He wants a goddamn bathtub full of vodka. He doesn't know what he wants.

 

"Stop it," Frank says thickly, in a voice that cuts Gerard to the bone.

 

"Stop what?" Gerard looking at him with surprise. Frank slumps forward, his face pressed into the curve where Gerard's neck meets his shoulder.

 

"Trying to fucking save me," Frank murmurs. "I was... I was so fucking sure. I knew what I'd done, I knew what I deserved. I didn't doubt it, not for one second. But then you had to come along, didn't you?" A long, shuddering breath. "And now I don't know what I know anymore."

 

"What's wrong with me wanting to save you?" Gerard says softly. The words are out of his mouth before he even knows what he's saying, fluttering like moths on soft, ragged wings into the watery light of dawn.

 

"What's wrong with it," Frank whispers, sounding almost guilty, as if he's confessing some terrible mortal sin. "Is that you make me want to let you. You make me want to be glad I lived through that."

 

Gerard doesn't know what to say to that. He wraps one arm around Frank and moves his hand in small, soothing circles. He watches Ray sitting up and brushing his thumb gently over Janelle's cheekbone with such a tender expression that Gerard looks away, embarrassed. He feels as if he's watching something private, intimate, something that wasn't meant for his eyes.

 

"They're good together," Frank says, smiling, and Gerard hums in agreement.

 

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, they are."

 

 

*

 

 

They hold a wake for Pete that night, outside among the thousands upon thousands of fireflies that seem to have gathered to mourn his passing. Grant tries to slip away, but Amanda holds him back.

 

"He'd have wanted you here," she says, and he agrees to stay. Perhaps, like the others, he feels that it's the least he can do. Queen B comes, too, silent and unannounced, her face covered by a sheer black veil, accompanied by a cadre of similarly dressed girls.

 

They give Pete a hunter's burial, the highest honor they can afford him. They carry his shrouded body carefully to the pyre they built that afternoon - he weighs almost nothing, Gerard knows he was barely eating by the time Grant came to Maman Brigitte's - and sprinkle sea salt and gasoline over him. Emilie was particularly insistent about that. She didn't say aloud that it was bad enough that they'd killed him once, that twice would be two times too many, but she didn't need to. They were all thinking it. She's standing next to Patrick, dressed all in black despite the heat. Patrick himself looks shell shocked, his face expressionless and pale. He looks like he did the night before, defeat plain to see in every line of him. His grief is enormous, as blinding as the sun and as deep as the sea, and Gerard avoids meeting his eyes. Finally, when they've laid Pete down, Emilie nudges him forward.

 

"Patrick," she murmurs. "Would you like to say a few words?"

 

But he shakes his head, and she nods, briefly, in understanding. She takes the gold Zippo lighter that Adam hands her and steps up to the pyre, surveying them all. She stands straight and tall, her head held high.

 

"We have suffered a terrible, terrible loss," she says. Her voice is soft, but it carries to everyone in the crowd. "We did what we could for Pete. He spent his whole life at the mercy of forces he was never able to control or understand, but he still stepped forward to save us all. He wasn't a hunter, but he was a casualty of a war that began with hunters and could have ended with every single one of us. It wasn't fair. But Pete was brave. He was braver than most of us could ever hope to be."

 

A pause, and a murmur of agreement from the crowd. There are one or two cheers, but they ring dismally in the silence.

 

"Without his strength," Emilie continues, "We couldn't have won. His last act was to save every man, woman and child in this world. And nobody but us will ever know. So what can we do? We can remember the sacrifice he made. We can tell our absent friends. We can make sure that every hunter, every psychic, every _Voodooisante_ \--everyone who wasn't here knows his name."

 

There's another ripple of agreement, this one louder than the last. Slowly, Emilie raises the lighter high above her head and  another tiny point of light joins the fireflies circling lazily in the dusk. "To Pete," she says, and every person in the crowd takes up the cry until the night is ringing with it. She lowers the lighter to the corner of the pyre and the gasoline ignites with a sound like the wings of a giant bird taking flight, and they watch as the flames lick higher and higher, clawing at the sky.

 

They all feel it, the silent void of absent friends sucking at them like a black hole, so someone starts feeding coins into the jukebox and Amanda and Ryan disappear inside and return shortly afterwards with crates of beer, bottles of bourbon and gin, even a dusty magnum of champagne.

 

"Thank Christ," Gerard mutters fervently. He makes a beeline for the pyramid of assorted booze, grabs a red solo cup and pours himself a (very) generous double whiskey. It burns his throat, searing him down to his very bones, but it feels good, like molten gold scorching away the hollowness in him. He finishes it, then pours himself another, scoops up a can of beer and goes looking for Mikey.

 

He finds him holed up in a sheltered corner of the back yard with Patrick. Neither of them notice Gerard walking over to them.

 

"I wish you'd met him sooner," Patrick is saying, his voice hoarse and his eyes red and swollen, and Gerard knows without having to ask who he's talking about. "He talked to you. You got him, you know? I spent years trying to understand what was going on in his head, but you..." he stops, and shakes his head. Gerard can hear how hard he's fighting to keep the resentment out of his voice.

 

"It's a curse," Mikey says bleakly. "I think he was glad you couldn't see it. He never would've wanted you to have to deal with it." Silently, he accepts the drink that Gerard hands him, but doesn't look away from Patrick. "He talked about you all the goddamn time whenever you weren't listening," Mikey goes on, his voice softening. "Patrick this, Patrick that. He thought the sun shone out of your ass."

 

Patrick manages a shaky laugh.

 

"You looked out for him," says Mikey firmly. "Right? And he appreciated that. You couldn't have done any more than you did."

 

Patrick makes a non-committal noise, but doesn't actually argue.

 

"What are you gonna do now?" Mikey asks.

 

Patrick shakes his head and exhales shakily, looking lost and young and helpless. "I don't know," he says. "I don't--I honestly never thought this far ahead. Kind of hoping if I didn't think about it then it wouldn't happen, I guess."

 

Gerard's insides seem to have snarled themselves up into awkward knots; not only does it sound all too familiar, but he feels like he shouldn't be listening to this.

 

"I'm gonna, uh," he says uncomfortably, and quietly walks away. Neither Mikey or Patrick seem to notice him go.

 

The atmosphere lightens by degrees, almost imperceptibly at first. It feels almost disbelieving in its celebration, as if none of them dare to believe that they've survived. For all the losses they suffered, for all the wounds and all the desperate fear, they seem to have come out on top of an impossible fight. It's difficult to laugh and drink through the grief choking him like cotton wool in his throat - it feels like they're the only survivors of some small, private war.

 

Gerard wanders here and there between the small knots of people, slipping in and out of other conversations without joining in. He can't seem to summon the energy to interact, so he just drifts. On his third circuit of the yard, the urge to seek out Ray crosses his mind. He glances around, looking for Ray's halo of curls.

 

His eyes fall on a bench tucked under a ponderous old cottongum tree, not quite out of sight but half-hidden from the rest of the yard. Ray is sitting there, and so is Janelle. They're wrapped around each other, her face in his hair, his one hand splayed against her back, her hands clenched in the back of his shirt. Gerard stops short.

 

He almost smiles. It's about time, he thinks. He turns away, not wanting to intrude on their moment, and resumes his aimless wandering.

 

The exhaustion steals over Gerard quietly, like mist, and he doesn't isn't even aware of it until he realizes that his knees are about to buckle under him. He excuses himself from a conversation with Amanda and a handful of other hunters and slips back into the blessed quiet of the bar. They spent the day cleaning up the aftermath of their battle with the beast, so all the broken glass has been swept away, the broken chairs gathered into trash bags, the floor mopped and the tables dragged back to their places. If it wasn't for the glassless windows and the smell of rainwater that still hangs heavily in the air, you'd never know. It seems strange to Gerard that all that remains of what they did last night are the smudged hints of Grant's pentagram on the floor.

 

He passes through the silent bar like a ghost, letting the voices coming from the back yard wash over him. He pushes the front door open and takes a seat on the top step, pulling a battered pack of smokes and a lighter from his pocket. The familiarity of the little ritual is weirdly soothing. He tips his head back and exhales smoke into the deepening darkness, grateful for the excuse not to think or feel for a while. He's just so _tired_ , his limbs heavy and his brain slow and sleepy. He knows it'll all catch up with him in the morning and that it'll be messy and painful, but for now, he just wants to enjoy this brief grace period, this merciful numbness.

 

He finishes his cigarette and lights another, not ready to rejoin the others quite yet. It's a beautiful evening, the air warm and sweet and the sky vast and peppered with stars. It occurs to him that this - this whole world - is what they fought for, and that makes him smile faintly. It was worth it, he thinks. He hopes Pete would have felt the same.

 

The sound of footsteps behind him makes him glance over his shoulder, and he sees Mikey padding over to him. He shuffles over to give Mikey room to sit down, and he does.

 

"Hey," Mikey says quietly. "What's up?"

 

"Nothing much." Gerard yawns and takes another drag on his smoke. He offers the pack to Mikey, who takes one and presses it against the glowing cherry of Gerard's to light it. "Just needed some air, that's all."

 

Mikey nods, and for a long time, neither of them speaks. They sit there together in companionable silence, and Gerard thinks - with a distinct twinge of guilt - that at least it wasn't Mikey. He doesn't think he could have taken it. He wrenches himself away from that particular train of thought and exhales slowly, pale smoke spilling from between his lips before it dissolves in the light breeze.

 

"So what do we do now?" Mikey says, eventually. "Do we just, you know... start again? Back on the road, all that?"

 

The question takes Gerard by surprise. Honestly, he hadn't thought about it until now. He thinks back to the mental image of himself in a house with a white picket fence and five cats, and almost chokes on a bubble of laughter at the sheer absurdity of it. "I guess so," he says. "I mean. What else would we do? What else do we even know how to do?"

 

Mikey chuckles. "That's true," he concedes. "I just thought-- I don't know. I thought you might not wanna do it anymore." A long, long pause. Then - "I always thought... I couldn't do it on my own. If you decided to quit or if something happened to you, I don't know what I'd do." Another pause. "Turn myself in, I guess."

 

Gerard doesn't answer straight away. "There were times when I wasn't so sure," he says, after a long moment. "But then, what else is there? And..." he pauses, choosing his words carefully. "It was fucking awful, what happened back there." Mikey nods, just once, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "But look what we did. We saved the world." It's only now he says it that the enormity of it, the sheer _absurdity_ of it hits him. He wants to laugh. "We saved the fucking world."

 

He can hear the words coming out of his mouth and knows he isn't making much sense, but, of course, Mikey seems to understand.

 

"Yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, we did."

 

Grinning, Gerard throws one arm around Mikey's shoulders and holds him close, and Mikey doesn't resist.

 

"Are you gonna be okay?" Mikey asks, his head still resting on Gerard's shoulder.

 

Gerard gives it a moment or two of honest consideration. "I think so," he says. "Maybe not today. But I think so. What about you?"

 

Mikey huffs a laugh. "You know me," he says. "I'm always okay."

 

They lapse back into silence. Gerard grinds out his cigarette and flicks the butt away, and Mikey does likewise a minute or two later. Gerard still feels more tired than he ever has in his life, but, as always, he feels better for talking to Mikey. Steadied, somehow.

 

A third pair of footsteps approaches, and they both look round. It's Frank, bleary-eyed and unshaven but sober.

 

"I, uh," he says, before Gerard can open his mouth to say hi. "I wanted to talk to you guys."

 

"Yeah?" Gerard raises one eyebrow. Frank doesn't move to sit down or come any closer, he just stands awkwardly a few feet away.

 

"Yeah." Frank nods. "I've been thinking--I'm not good on my own, you know? And I was wondering if... if I could stay with you guys."

 

He's looking at Mikey, Gerard realizes, seeking his permission rather than Gerard's, and something seizes in Gerard's chest. Mikey focuses a searchlight stare on Frank, looking him over, and Frank squirms under his scrutiny. Mikey looks away from Frank to glance at Gerard instead. _What do you think?_

 

Gerard knows his answer, has known it for a long time. He lowers his head fractionally, the barest hint of a nod, and Mikey returns it. As one, they turn back to Frank. He looks tense, no trace of arrogance or sarcasm to be found in his face, and Gerard can see how badly he wants not to be alone anymore.

 

"Okay," he says. "You're in."

 

And as Frank smiles, even though last night should have been the end of the world, it feels like the beginning.

 

 

*

 

 

One day after the storm, the dreams of New Orleans' artists and poets are flooded with nameless, faceless horrors and yawning, unknowable things that sent some to the bathroom for their sleeping pills and some to the psych wards. Outside the city, deep in Bayou Sauvage, Grant returns the Necronomicon to its custom-made safe, and he runs his fingertips over the sigils etched into the sides and prays to all the gods that he'll never need to use the thing again as long as he lives.

 

Two days after the storm, certain oddities are found washed up in the swamps around Lake Pontchartrain, including a two headed alligator and several corpses, all dressed in the rotting scraps of ceremonial robes.

 

Three days after the storm,  people all over the city began to wake up to find their hair turned a ghostly greenish-white, leeched of all color, as light and dry as cotton candy.

 

Seven days after the storm, the nightmares still haven't stopped, although several mental institutions in and around New Orleans have to restrain previously docile, low-risk patients who howl and thrash and talk in tongues.

 

Two weeks after the storm, scattered instances of eldritch night terrors and bone-white hair begin to surface further from New Orleans, rippling out across the state. The body count continues to rise. Back on the road, Mikey delivers weekly phone-in reports to their friends back at Maman Brigitte's, who are keeping a watchful eye on the repercussions as they unfold. Three more realtors have tried to acquire the building - without success.

 

Six weeks after the storm, Frank, Gerard and Mikey run into a crew of hunters in a roadhouse in South Carolina, who go silent and starry-eyed when they learn that the Ways and Frank were in the eye of the storm itself when it happened. Somewhere along the line, all of them have become legends, rockstars, heroes.

 

Two months after the storm, Gerard still misses Adam and he misses Bert and Mikey is still grieving quietly for Pete and Frank has more people to miss than both Ways put together. The wounds are still fresh, but Gerard hopes that they'll heal.

 

Three months after the storm, they're working on a haunting up in Connecticut. Frank cracks endless horror movie jokes, and then saves Mikey's life by jumping from the mezzanine onto the apparition and bringing an iron poker straight down through it. He breaks two ribs and three fingers, but Mikey rewards him with a rare, precious grin, and Frank looks like a child on Christmas morning.

 

Six months after the storm, Ray still hasn't gone back to Jersey. He has, however, asked Gerard to be his best man.

 


End file.
